Yet Another RHoD Campaign Journal [PF this time]

[The Glyphstone]

That's right. Once again, the the WhiteRed Hand of SarumanDoom musters to march upon the defenseless villagers of RohanElsir Vale. Only this time, they're doing it under a mostly-Pathfinder ruleset, in a yet-undetermined part of Golarion (we're going right to the top on this one, since I don't know the setting, but the Ask James Jacobs thread sometimes takes a few days to be updated). First, let's meet our intrepid band of heroes:

-Roland, LG Human Fighter 5. Dual-wields a longsword and heavy shield for bashing.
-Mala, NG Human Crusader 5. Uses a glaive for reach and armor spikes, but didn't have the Int for Combat Expertise and the chain-tripper goodness that results.
-Variel, CG Half-Elf Magus 5. Dervishes Dances with a scimitar, and loves to Spellstrike things for MASSIVE DAMAGE with Frigid Touch hits.
-Varithras, NG Elf Ranger 5 with the Falconer archetype. Likes sending his animal companion to peck at people's eyes, followed up by a salvo of arrows in the chest.
-Janice, NG Halfling Oracle 5. Mystery of Life, enjoys summoning monsters to flank and harass enemies when not healing.
-Eccawin, CG Human Stormborn Sorceress 5. Loaded up with electricity and sonic spells appropriate for her heritage, but actually spends most of her turns buffing the melee with Enlarge Person and debuffing big enemies with Oppressive Boredom.



------------------------------------------------
I started them off with the default Vault of Vraath Keep hook. A bit of empty RP time that turned into OOC chatter filled a gap, then I collected Perception mods and rolled for the ambushing enemies, who were awful at hiding themselves. Everyone genre-savvily knew there was an ambush OOC, I didn't try to bluff it out, so we rolled right into Marauder Attack. Due to the 6-person group and PF rules, I scaled it up slightly by adding 2 Hobgoblin Regulars to the initial ambush, and a third Hellhound into the reinforcement wave in Round 4, as well as making the Bladebearer a Warblade 4. Unfortunately, I was also very sick that night and getting sicker, so I don't remember a whole lot of the fight that ended up taking 3 hours (3 of the players are entirely new to 3.X, though they picked it up fast enough).

For the hobgoblins, it started off bad and got worse. The armored melee warriors were out in front, ad took the initial arrow barrage untouched. Then they started going after individual warriors, mostly oneshotting them one at a time while arrows and swords futilely plinked off their AC. They got a little worried when the two Hellhounds flanking the Bladebearer showed up in Round 2 to reinforce the decimated Hobgoblin regulars, but recognized him as the 'boss monster' of the fight and unloaded a can of pain on the poor guy - bombing his MoPM Will save versus Command left him unarmed for a turn in which everyone alpha-striked him into oblivion, as the Hellhounds failed to contribute beyond a small amount of fire damage.

Meanwhile, the Doom Hand Cleric had snuck behind invisible, and summoned a Hell Hound right in Eccawin's face. Unfortunately, it promptly bombed a Save versus Oppressive Boredom and sat down to blow smoke rings while the nearby Ranger pelted it with arrows. He kept rolling badly, but so did it, so the end result was a half-dead hellhound that spent 4 of its 5 rounds of existence doing nothing, snapping out of it just in time to breath fire once and then vanish. Other highlights included the eight-strong reinforcement squad show up, launch one volley of arrows at Maya, then promptly melt under the angry attacks of all three melee. Iron Guard's Glare with Enlarged Reach was surprisingly potent, meaning the mooks could only hit on 20's against anyone except her, and hitting her meant provoking AoOs. They tried to swarm her anyways, but that left them vulnerable to basically everyone else, even without AoE damage aside from Variel's Burning Hands attacks.

In the end, they managed to take 6 captives, Regulars who hadn't bled out by the time everyone else had stopped fighting or run away (3 successfully fled when the Bladebearer went down, the Cleric never actually broke his stealth and booked it after seeing his troops get slaughtered). Since they had heard orders being barked in Goblin, they decided to try and interrogate them in Goblin, despite the un-Diplomacy and un-Intimidate trained oracle Janice being the only Goblinspeaker. I allowed Aid Anothers on the checks from the threatening and scary melee warriors, though, and she managed to get one of them talking slightly, picking up threats about their impending deaths by the Red Hand. When she repeated her findings from the 'dirty hobgoblins' in Common to the party, I mentioned that the captives apparently didn't like being called dirty.

Yeah, they spoke Common just fine, but no one had thought to ask. Now the interrogation was turned over to Maya, and they sang like Angry Birds, giving away everything except the existence of Karkilan. Now pressed with what to do with their prisoners and battle loot, we ended for the week so I could spend a weekend miserable in bed.

Session 2 was last night, and I'll have that posted once I write it up.

[ThatLovin'Elan]

Might I recommend a refluffed Half-Giant (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/races/half-giant) Soulknife (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife)? I've had trouble challenging my level 4 Pathfinder group with low level Fighters, so I threw these (http://www.dndsheets.net/view.php?id=25501) guys at them, refluffed as unholy alchemical goblin experiments. I'm sure "dragon-infused" hobgoblins with swords of flame would work just as well.

Also, make note that they have the Toppling Strike blade skill (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife#TOC-Blade-Skills):


Toppling Strike: If the soulknife's mind blade has the Trip special feature, she may use it to make a single attack at her full base attack bonus as a standard action. If the attack hits, it deals damage normally and the soulknife can make a free trip attack (using her full base attack bonus) against the same foe. She does not provoke an attack of opportunity for this trip attempt. A soulknife must have the Weapon Special blade skill before selecting this blade skill.

Edit: Also, remember if you scale them up in level, they'll start getting free enhancement modifiers on their weapons. Since their blades are trip weapons with the blade skills given, the enhancement modifiers get added to CMB rolls to trip :D

[Saintheart]

Needless to say: we will be watching this one with great interest! :smallbiggrin:

[The Glyphstone]

Week 2:

After a brief recap of the first session's events, and the information they had learned (a human fort in the west was the hobgoblin's base, they were one of many bands roaming the countryside, and their leader was a sorcerer named Wyrmlord Koth), the first order of business was deciding what to do with their recalcitrant captives. Naturally, the first suggestions were to kill them all. Janice the oracle objected, and the rest of the party belatedly realized they were also Good-aligned, and probably shouldn't be murdering prisoners. Also naturally, they then segued into trying to work out how they could kill the prisoners anyways and justify it as a non-Evil act, with phrases like 'justice' and 'public menace'. Eventually, it was pointed out that they were only a mile or two away from a town, which might have a jail - the LG Fighter in particular jumped on this idea, because then judicial murder would be the problem of the authorities and he'd be off the hook. So off they went to Drelin's Ferry, with a string of grumpy tied-up hobgoblins in tow.

When they got into view of the watchtower posts, there was a brief flurry of activity before the guards realized the approaching hobgoblins were prisoners. This got the group off to a good start from the beginning with the sergeant in charge, who recommended they deliver their 'gifts' to the Toll House, which I decided did have enough jail space to house a half-dozen hobgoblins. Depending on how events go, the guards might or might not get around to killing them before the Horde arrives...the party also meets Captain Soranna at the Toll House (rather than the inn), along with Town Speaker Winston, and the expository plot hook is obligingly laid out. Surprisingly, even for a Good party, they don't ask for a cash reward in exchange for scouting out the bandit's lair and hopefully rooting them out permanently, though they do ask for 'assistance' from the town, which gets them some potion-brewing services gratis by Avarathel and Brother Derny. After selling off their looted arms and armor to Morlin the Smith, happy to melt them down and craft some decent weapons from the junk, they take rooms in the Old Bridge Tavern and rest for the night.

DAY 2

Captain Soranna arrives around noon, as printed, with a Potion of Barkskin +3 and a Potion of Shield of Faith +3, the items requested by the party - apparently their AC wasn't quite high enough. Thus outfitted, they were presented with the choice of heading west along the road immediately and trying to locate Vraath Keep by themselves, or detouring north along the Witchwood Trail to try and recruit Jorr Natherson, the eccentric woodsman and tracker. They go for Jorr, as I had expected and hoped, narrowly dodging a random encounter along the way and easily navigating the Acrobatics checks for the occasional deep stream. Meeting Jorr is short, but entertaining for everyone involved, primarily because of the 'accent' I adopted for him; prereading the adventure and seeing that Jorr owned three hunting dogs who lived under his porch, I immediately thought 'REDNECK', so in conversation with him, I gave Jorr the most awful stereotypical Deep-South hillbilly hick accent you can imagine, and they loved him for it. His fee as a guide was accepted almost without quibble, only a brief questioning over what 'someplace dangerous' meant for the premium charge. Vraath Keep was within the borders of the Witchwood, so he was fine with guiding them there, but wouldn't get into a fight with them if one broke out.

Following Jorr's shortcuts, they emerged back on to the road further west, needing to cross the flooded causeway before breaking north to the Keep. Secretly rolled Perception checks this time, and only Eccawin the sorceress beat the hydra's natural 20 on Stealth, allowing her to spot a snakelike head and neck near the ruined wagon, which ducked out of sight when she pointed it out to the other party members. Roland and Maya decided to go check it out, after Janice's Detect Magic revealed a magical abjuration aura in the vicinity of the wagon, and a summoned Celestial Wolf was dispatched as an advance scout. Out of the water, the hydra Pounced and annihilated the sacrificial bait as expected, and battle was joined - entire party versus the Hydra's initiative of 2. Having used Marauder Attack's curbstomping as a baseline for encounter difficulty, I decided to up the difficulty by giving the Hydra HP equal to its eight-headed version while retaining six active heads (and describing the two charred stumps that remained of its missing heads, victims of a previous attempt to slay it), and restoring its vastly superior Fast Healing from 3.5 instead of the gimped version PF hydras have.

Being unable to charge through the knee-deep bog, both melee tanks advanced cautiously under Total Defense actions. The Oracle began another Summon, the Magus fired some ineffectual Magic Missiles while moving up towards the fight, and the Sorceress moved close enough to Enlarge the Crusader again. With so many juicy targets in reach, the hydra's response was naturally to charge, splitting its attacks between the two frontliners. Roland escaped unscathed, but excellent attack rolls (including a m crit) and poor damage rolls cost Maya 31HP.

The party's immediate retaliation is rather lackluster, as Roland misses twice, Maya also misses, Variel moves a bit closer and Magic Missiles another handful of easily Fast-Healing HP away. The Fire Elemental summoned by Janice is ineffectual, and Eccawin Enlarges Roland as well to create a solid meat-wall between the more fragile party members and the monster. Fully healed, the Hydra lashed out again, and this time Roland takes the brunt of the hits, losing 25HP.

Roland and Maya fail to injure the Hydra again, as does the elemental while moving into a flanking position, but now Variel is in place to deliver his signature alpha-strike, which he lands. A 21-point hit, and the Hydra is automatically Staggered for a turn, right as Eccawin smacks it with another Oppressive Boredom, against which it tanks its save. It takes two rounds to break free this time, during which the party slowly whittles down its Body HP - except for Variel, who realizes its lack of ability to take opportunity attacks means now is an excellent time to start sundering heads, and manages to chop one off and sear it shut via Arcane Pool-enhanced Flaming sword before its friends regain their senses. This, however, makes the hydra rather angry, and getting into melee range has left exposed and squishy. A five-head full attack knocks away half his HP.

Now at less than half HP, the beast is quite wounded, but instead of fleeing, it shifts position slightly to block the party's access to the sunken wagon - this odd behavior is noted, but ignored. Another vengeful full attack on the fire-wielder and Variel is teetering at 4HP, conscious and alive only because of Janice's risky advance into AoO range to heal him. Stuck in the marsh, he can't 5-ft step to freedom, nor safely Withdraw due to being too deep within its threat envelope, so he riskily goes for sticking it out and hoping the group can bring it down before it goes again. They barely manage such, aided by a Foehammer crit from Maya, and the Hydra is knocked into negatives. It promptly wakes up, but goes after Maya this time and does only a few ineffectual scratches. More merciless beatings follow to push it down into unconsciousness, and Variel goes for the coup-de-grace killing blow. Wounds are patched up, as Maya investigates the wagon the hydra was so strangely protective of.

She finds, along with the armored and half-eaten body of a hobgoblin champion and his mithril breastplate, a half-dozen baby hydralings feasting on it. More moral quandries are discussed, including possibilities that range from raising the critters as pets to building a makeshift catapult and flinging them over Vraath Keep's walls to attack the hobgoblins living there. The end result is a mercy killing of the baby hydras via Burning Hands, after which they loot the charred breastplate, and the session ends.

[The Glyphstone]

Week 3: In Which There Is Less Blow-By Blow Combat Description, and In Which The Reaper Cometh

When the Cat's Not Away, the PCs Will Play

Evidentally, turn-by-turn description of a slow dragging fight is boring. It bores me re-reading it, at least, and I was there for it. So no more of that.


Anyways, this week's session started with the Ranger recovering from his bout of Vanishing Plague, but not before the highly contagious disease was passed on to the Oracle and the Magus, leaving the party 4-strong and down a primary healer and a damage-dealer. To compensate, I removed the extra two hobgoblin veterans I had put in, an intended third wolf rider+goblin, and downgraded Karkilan to a Barbarian 1 instead of the Barbarian 2 I had originally buffed him to. I figured they could still take the keep if they were careful, with their wealth of potions alongside the CLW wand and the occasional Crusader Strike. I was wrong, but we'll get to that later.

So, they approach Vraath Keep as twilight begins to fall. I point out that it's late and getting dark, to where anyone without low-light vision will be having vision problems outside. They press on, climbing the hill and approaching from the south. There, they can see one of the fallen giant skeletons near the caved-in south wall, and metagame the heck out of it and assume it's a lurking skeleton monster. The ranger fires arrows at it for a few rounds, then gives up when nothing happens. They creep up to the wall, and the fighter crushes the completely harmless skeleton's skull in. Now against the wall of the keep proper, they end up choosing the Manticore's nest to explore first. The manticore is there of course, sleeping, but the noise of the door opening wakes it up. The fighter is halfway through declaring his charge action when I mention that the creature talks sleepily to them in Common, and there is some mildly amusing skidding on verbal ice. The manticore, still sleepy and thinking they're Hand minions, tells them to go away so it can rest, to which they cheerfully comply.

Leeeeeeroyy.......

Unfortunately for them, next up is the double doors leading into the barracks of Area 8, where the four veterans are dicing while Karkilan stands watch over them. No one makes Perception checks on either side, so everyone is surprised when the doors are busted open. Ranger and Sorceress beat out Kark and the veterans, the Fighter and Crusader go after them. The first few rounds of combat are a slaughter - unarmored and without the initiative, the veterans are easy meat. This is also where they realize that they never rested after the hydra, so the Sorceress is completely out of 2nd level spells. This doesn't faze them though, and they continue.

Karkilan's first move, though, is retreating into the tower to warn Koth, who goes to buff himself. By the time they're finished CDG's hobbos, he's got his Mage Armor and Shield active, is under Invisibility, and Karkilan is waiting by the door with a readied action. As Koth peeks out the open door, they bizzarely and obligingly arrange themselves in a perfect line, the two melee warriors marching towards the door while the ranger and sorceress cluster in the double doors. Lightning Bolt! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw) Crusader takes it in the face, Ranger and Fighter save, the Sorceress fails but has Electricity Resistance 5 from her bloodline. One potion and a Wand tap later, the Crusader barges through the open door right into Karkilan's axe. She begins engaging him in a reach-on-reach duel, while the Fighter and the Ranger's falcon rush up to swarm the minotaur. Koth tries to take the pressure off by Charming, but lucky rolls for his targets preserve their minds, and Karkilan loses half his HP in a single turn. Now he finally gets a chance to rage, which doesn't really give him much but makes the party go 'uh oh'. Meanwhile, Koth is retreating up the staircase, and the Fighter takes a painful AoO to chase after him - right into Koth's Magic Missile wand. Now trapped between an enraged Karkilan and Koth with an AC better than his, he ends up at -4 before the Crusader can get Karkilan's attention again with Defensive Rebuke and Iron Guard's Glare.


Whack-A-PC

The fighter is down, and the Crusader's luck runs out with a string of awful rolls against Karkilan. Karkilan's rolls are awful right back though. Outside, the manticore is now watching through the hole in the roof, and when Koth shouts for it to kill everyone except him, it grudgingly obeys by unloading a barrage of spikes at the Ranger, knocking off half of his health. This scares Ranger quite a bit, but he holds his ground and continues to fire arrows at Karkilan through the doorway, as his hawk flutters around the minotaur's eyes as a distraction (special Falconer trick). Karkilan goes down the next turn, and the Crusader moves up the stairway with the hawk ahead of her to try and get Koth, while the Ranger takes another spike volley and is at single-digit HP. He sprints for the cover of the tower and hides behind the desk, leaving the Sorceress alone with the manticore. She, recognizing the better part of valor, Vanishes and retreats into the tower as well. Koth and his wand have been whittling away at the hawk, but when the Crusader rounds the corner and bounces off his buffed AC, he manages to land a Charm Person on her, and instructs her to keep the hawk restrained.

This ensues several rounds of comedic ineptitude as the Hawk flutters at Koth to no avail, Koth rolls awful for his Magic Missile damage, and the Crusader whiffs repeatedly on Grapple CMB attempts versus the hawk. Below, the manticore works its way through the doors into the tower chamber, just as the Ranger breaks cover to try and heal the Fighter back to positive HP. He succeeds, giving the Fighter a turn to slug a potion, but now has a hungry manticore in his face and drops to negatives himself. The Crusader finally manages to grapple the hawk, keeping it off Koth, but when the Fighter shouts a warning from below before a Manticore full attack knocks him back into negatives as well, she abandons it to go help her other friends; Koth is tough, he can take a bird.

Fly, You Fools!; or, Dinner To Go

Judging Koth to be more dangerous than the untouched manticorer, the Sorceress pursues him up the stairwell, and tries to Ray of Frost only to miss. His reply is a Lightning Bolt, which she is badly injured by (the hawk is unharmed, thanks to Evasion). Below, the Crusader's HP is dropping fast as she keeps the manticore from devouring her allies, and I'm running out of excuses not to kill people. A lucky Ear-Piercing Scream Dazes Koth and prevents him from Lightning Bolting again, allowing the Sorceress to get out of the line of fire, but at the cost of her last non-cantrip spell slot. At this point, both Koth and the Manticore have taken a beating, and Koth has retreated to the top of the tower after MMing the hawk into unconsciousness. He shouts for the Manticore to break off and come pick him up to retreat, to which it complains about being hungry. He tells it to bring a snack, and it picks the unconscious (though stabilized) Ranger, grappling him and retreating out the door while being spear-prodded by the single-digit HP Crusader. On her next turn, she stabs it again and almost kills it, causing the beast to decide to abandon Koth and fly off with its meal. A hail-mary longbow shot misses (a natural 1, no less), while Koth casts another Invisibility and drinks his potion of Fly to vacate the premises as well.

End total - one dead and eaten ranger, one severely mauled party. In the confusion, the two goblins and worgs that no one noticed made an unhindered escape upon seeing the Manticore fleeing. Here we stopped for the night.

[The Glyphstone]

Week 4: In Which The Author Begins To Wonder If Anyone Is Reading This

Step 3 - Loot Profit!

So when we left off, the party had just rather ill-advisedly taken on the entire garrison of Vraath Keep, while missing two party members and out of spell slots for the day. In the bloodsoaked aftermath, they chose to immediately book it out of the keep and back to the road, where Jorr was waiting with the two PCs who had recovered from their bout of Vanishing Plague (but not before passing it on to the Crusader).

Now, I make sure to confirm that they were leaving the keep entirely before camping. This is because they had, in fact, left one enemy alive...the hobgoblin mook who had been in the top of the tower making 'ghost' noises, and under orders from Koth to hide there until it was safe. During the night, he crept downstairs, grabbed everything he could carry from Koth's chambers and the map from Area 9, and hightailed it out and away to Skull Gorge. Returning the next morning, the party realized they had screwed up upon seeing the ransacked chamber, though they did manage to find a bound folder full of notes and papers that fell underneath Koth's bed. It was unreadable though, even Comprehend Languages only showed it was in code. A thorough search of the building found everything, including the secret door to the vault. There was much debate over how to descend the ladder, ranging from ropes tied to the furniture to chain-casting Prestidigitation to clean all the rust off the ladder and hope it didn't collapse. In the end, they just climbed down.

Alongside the various loot items, they found the library history. In this campaign's continuity (to make it fit Golarion), Vraath Keep was sacked during the Goblinblood Wars. The notes describe Avery Vraath's confidence that the local goblinoids would be no danger, right up the eve of destruction. The party now legally owns the keep with the deed, but are only interested in selling it to someone who doesn't know what an awful condition it's in.


Homeward Bound

With nothing else to do in the keep, and loot divvied up, they headed back to Drelin's Ferry. On the way, they met a traveling alchemist who had come to town seeking an old friend, and joined up to travel together and kill goblins. Returning to town, they give Speaker Winston the 'good' news, dancing adroitly around the fact that they very nearly got their butts handed to them in the process of purging the keep. Selling off more of their not-quite-ill-gotten gains, they go to sleep feeling satisfied.

When they wake up, they are less satisfied, as a family has rushed into down after being ambushed by goblins on the road. Clearly, clearing Vraath Keep was not enough, though again they lack any clear idea of where to go. With nothing better to do, they cross the river and prowl the forests for an afternoon, catching a few goblin ambushes and murdering them. They go to sleep again, only to be awoken around midnight by shouts of goblin raiders attacking the town. As intrepid heroes do, they rush to intervene.

This fight doesn't last long, and it drives home the point to me that the base mooks as printed can't handle even minimally optimized Pathfinder PCs. The Worgs never hit once in 5 rounds of fighting, and the only hit off the goblin riders was a single bowshot and one crit with a scimitar for minimum damage. The party loots more masterwork weapons, vocally expressing their confusion at how well-funded and well-equipped these raiders are. They also loot a map, inscribed with notes in coded Goblin. It takes a few very blunt hints before they go around town looking for an NPC who has Linguistics as a skill, and leave their findings with Sartherian the Wise to be translated.


Hobgoblins, Ogres, and Dragons, Oh My

The alchemist spends his day brewing Potions of Ablative Barrier for everyone who wants one, and the wizard Sartherian returns rather upset. He had translated the notes, telling the party about the massive army that was bearing down on them. They immediately seize on the mention of Skull Gorge, and elect to go burn it down to slow the horde while the town evacuates. Unfortunately, Speaker Winston explains that a vote of the Town Council is necessary, and several of its members will need convincing proof to abandon their homes. Plus, there's a dragon to slay, so off the party goes to the bridge...

[Draz74]

and they sang like Angry Birds,
This was my favorite part of the whole Journal so far.


Week 4: In Which The Author Begins To Wonder If Anyone Is Reading This

I hadn't seen it before today, but now I'll be on the lookout for updates. I was particularly interested to see how much it would hurt the long-term war efforts when the party entirely missed the clues leading to Skull Gorge Bridge, but it seems you've thrown them a couple bones to help clue them in to the danger retroactively. Probably because you really wanted a dragon fight. :smalltongue:

EDIT: How often and how long are your sessions?

[The Glyphstone]

We play for 3-3.5 hours once a week, Friday nights. Sadly, the Magus will be out next session, but he'll be getting full NPC status rather than Vanishing Plague, since they won't be able to take the bridge without him.

And yeah, I want a dragon fight. It'll be a nasty dragon fight too, since a Young Green in PF is already roughly the same stats and CR of a Juvenile Green in 3.5. Ozzy's already statted for a strategy of strafing runs, which will frustrate the melee-heavy party immensely unless the Alchemist can get lucky with a Tanglefoot Bag. The Veterans and Hellhounds are pretty much afterthoughts/distractions, though they've gotten boosts too to make them more than just mobile scenery (a block of Phalanx Fighters with Tower Shields and the Shield Wall teamwork feat...teamwork feats on mooks are the best thing ever). The Hounds got a couple more HD and the Clinging Breath feat to give them a little bit of threat ability, though they're still mostly HP soaks.

[The Glyphstone]

Week 5: In Which LondonSkull Gorge Bridge Comes Falling Down

They Might Be (Friendly) Giants

With the Ablative Barriers readied, the only other purchase deemed necessary was a scroll of Web. Apparently forgetting they knew the color of their upcoming opponent, they passed on any Scrolls of Resist Energy, or anything else.

Heading north along the road, they eventually came to the Twistusk effigy marking the split in the road. Previous knowledge, and the writings from Vraath Keep, had told them that giants fought with the goblinoids last time they attacked. With this tribal totem marking giant territory, they debated (briefly) bypassing the giants and going on to the bridge, before remembering that the last time they skipped a fight, it cost them a party member. So up the hill they go, finally encountering Warklegnaw at his campfire. They know from Knowledge: Nature that Forest Giants come in two flavors: Good and Evil, and they're not sure which one this cranky oldster is - the "Lawful Good" Fighter advocates attacking him immediately to minimize casualties on their side. The CG Oracle ignores him, going up to Warklegnaw and starting a conversation. One fantastic Diplomacy check later (total of 35) and they'd made a big friend, eating Dire Boar and trading stories. Now they get the Forest Giant side of the story, explaining that the giants had been magically controlled slaves of the goblinoid spellcasters, losing many of their numbers as involuntary shock troops. More died after the Wars, when human reprisal attacks destroyed their camps, and the survivors fled deep into the forest. Not Warklegnaw, though.

When informed that the goblinoids were rising again, he became very agitated. It didn't take much convincing to get him to go find the surviving Twisttusks and argue for them to intervene against the Horde, since they didn't want to be enslaved again.


How Much XP Do You Get For Killing A Bridge?

Another few hours of walking, and they arrive at Skull Gorge proper. A brief scouting mission by the two stealthiest party members - Alchemist and Magus - reveal the covering forces. Feeling confident that the only threat is the dragon, they opt for an outright frontal assault after buffing under Haste. Ozyrandion and the Hounds react before they do more than appear out of the woods - the closer Hound hits them with a Clinging Breath for minimal damage, and has no further impact on the fight beyond being healed once by an indiscriminate Channel Energy. Ozzy catches them clumped with a cone breath in a Flyby Attack, but immediately succumbs to an Oppressive Boredom spell and spends two rounds inactive. The Alchemist is flinging Tanglefoot bags and Waters of Lamashtu at the dragon practically nonstop, but Ozzy's great saves keep him in the air and unharmed though continually sick.

Against all reasonable odds, the Fighter actually has two ranks in Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering, and detects the bridge's weak point (I moved it to the dead center so it wouldn't be a total cakewalk). Everyone in the party speaks Draconic, btw, so that is the language they pass their secret battlefield commands in...then they remember who their opponent is right now. Hearing the Fighter order the Crusader to go smash the bridge's cracked keystone, Ozzy breaks his Boredom and does another strafing run, landing on the bridge to block their way. The subsequent round of full attacks and spellcasting take out about 2/3 of his HP, and he retaliates by full-attacking the Fighter into negative HP.

More hits bring Ozzy to a fraction of his HP, to where he'll try to flee, but another Channel has the Fighter conscious, if prone. Standing up will provoke AoO and put him down again, so he instead goes for a prone Shield Bash, hitting Ozzy and knocking him out. I judge it to be a shield-uppercut to the dragon's jaw. He's ready for a dramatic decapitating Coup De Grace next turn...

Then the Oracle's Spiritual Weapon rolls max damage and kills Ozzy.

Through all of this, the Magus has been the only one bothering to fight the utterly ineffectual Veterans, climbing a tower to Shocking Grasp Channel one into oblivion, then Haste-Jumping across to the other tower and fighting the other sentry. By the time he's done, the Crusader has Hammered the keystone out, and the Fighter has managed to Drag Ozzy's corpse onto solid ground.


Victorious Return

The bridge crumbles, and the remaining 6 Veterans who failed to do any damage whatsoever the entire fight flee from the other side of the chasm. Ant Haul Infusions are brewed and passed out, spreading the weight so that the party can tow an entire 2500+ lb. dragon corpse back to town with them, for what reasons I have no clue. It does come in handy for arguing with the council, though, as they point out that this was the Horde's mailman. Evacuation procedures begin, and the party basks in a job well done.

[The Glyphstone]

Week 6-7: In Which Introspection Occurs, But Game Does Not

No game last week, because I was celebrating Thanksgiving with family early, and no game this week, because everyone else is celebrating Thanksgiving on time. So, GM musings.

Based on Part 1, I definitely need to ramp up encounter difficulties going forward. Pathfinder base classes are roughly 0.5-1 ECL higher than their 3.5 equivalents, and a 6-person party is about the same. So, when the characters are level 6, they've got the damage output, and more importantly, the action economy, of a level 7-8 party, which is what I'll be looking to calculate for during Part 2.

Secondly, the problem of the Red Hand line troops. As it stands, even Hobgoblin Veterans are horribly, horribly outclassed by the party - they're fishing for 20's against the frontline warriors, and of the rest of the group, only the Sorceress has an AC lower than 20. The Crusader has a Reach weapon, the Fighter uses Combat Patrol and Shield Slam, and they're often Enlarged, so swarm tactics just end poorly for everyone attacking them. Fights going forward will likely place more emphasis on the monsters and 'special' creatures, with the troopers using Aid Another actions or forming Shield Walls with tower shields to cover archers.

Looking at the Part 2 story encounters, I'll leave Easy Skirmish untouched - it's supposed to be a cakewalk, it's even in the name of the fight. Dirty Rotten Looters uses four Rogue4 - I'll bump them up to Rogue5 and add two extra thugs, but it's still primarily a RP encounter; any one party member can oneshot a thug, causing the entire group to retreat. Mercenary Gold will get a third Ettin added to the group to replace the goblins (they'll flee at the start of combat), and nothing else - using Overruns to get to the squishier party members will make the fight challenging enough.

Miha Serani will be interesting. To start with, Pathfinder Araneas are 5th level casters instead of 3rd level, and roughly 50% more innate HP. If I just slap 4 Sorcerer levels on her, she'll be CR 9, sporting 4th level spells - a good combat encounter, but not so much on the spy-and-infiltrate role she plays in the story. I'm thinking of making her instead a Rogue 3/Arcane Trickster 3 - CR10 nominally, with the casting output of an 8th level Sorcerer instead and a bit more durability. Thoughts on what to do, anyone?

[Draz74]

All sounds reasonable to me.

[Doorhandle]

It does sound reasOnable, and I for one am interested in how this campaign turns out.

[The Glyphstone]

I need an idea for a winged mount that goblins can ride - right now I'm thinking of using dire bats, but that just feels off for some reason. Can anyone suggest anything else?

[TroubleBrewing]

If you advance Eagles by 1 hit die, they become Medium, and thus eligible for Small riders.

Alternatively: Giant Wasps.

[Greymane]

Dire Boars. With the Winged Template. Because only Goblins are sneaky enough to get pigs to fly.

[TroubleBrewing]

Ooo, Howler Wasps (MMIV) have advancement to Medium, and if you're feeling REALLY crazy, they go all the way to Large.

I imagine the party would be looting a lot of earplugs (A&EG) off of those riders, though.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm more concerned with something that fits thematically, for the Horde, and rather low-CR.


Eagles could work, though RHoD has Giant Eagles already 'associated' with the Tiri Kitor elves. Giant Wasps, maybe.

Winged Dire Boars are right out.

[TroubleBrewing]

You could re-fluff the eagles as vultures, ravens, rooks, etc. Anything with a suitably evil reputation.

I've always been fond of vermin mounts. I'm not sure why.

I think Giant Praying Mantis are eligible for flying mounts. They're large sized, too.

EDIT: Yeah, Giant Praying Mantis fly. They're bad at it, but they can.

[The Glyphstone]

Giant vultures could work, now that I think of it.

[TroubleBrewing]

If you want some magical spice added to your ordinary bland vulture, try Deadborn Vultures, out of MMV. When they die, they spontaneously arise as zombies. It's like getting two critters for the price of one!

[jguy]

Deadborn vulture is probably the best honestly. Its a cr 8 that becomes a zombie when it dies, but the best is its flavor. They are made by performing a evil ritual on the eggs of giant eagles and giant owls. You could say that the hobgoblins have raided the elves nests for eggs. Gives the elves even more reason to get vengeance.

[The Glyphstone]

I ended up going with vultures, but since the goblins were never even engaged, it didn't matter.

Week 8: In Which The Update Is Very Late, And Details Have Been Forgotten

Nothing much happened for a day or two while the village packed up to evacuate, though I had the Lion of Brindol visit late on the second day to hand-deliver the plot hook to explore the road to Rhest.

Day 10, the caravan set out - with a thousand+ people in the village all evacuating, I figured that would be a very, very long wagon train. The party decided to station all of their numbers at the front of the caravan, to best deal with any roadblocks ahead. So naturally, the Chimera comes at the train from behind, and gets several turns of frost-breath mayhem before they arrive. Now, the plan was to have it land and fight for a bit, get hurt, retreat into the air for some healing, then strafe the party a bit more. Instead, the party collectively manages to kill it in a single turn.:smallmad: The two vulture-rider handlers flee and are not pursued.

Nothing else occurs for the remainder of the day, but around midnight, another band of worg riders shows up, attempting to lure the party out of their ring of protective fires. This is met with moderate success, though no one is severely injured. The highlight of the fight is repeated groans of frustration at the Goblins successfully employing their Mounted Combat feats to cause the party aggravation, and one Worg+Goblin team successfully disarming the Fighter of his magical sword before dying to alchemist bombs and sorceress blasting. I have Wave 2 show up this time, eight Hobgoblins and a War Adept under Mirror Image, and they do nothing except bog the game down into another thirty-minute argument about how tower shields work. I hate tower shields, and will likely stop using them on the mooks. Here, the highlight is an unintentional use of Spiritual Weapon as a See Invisibility spell...the summoned blade is conjured on the War Adept, but when he goes Invisible to flee, we consult the rules for Spiritual Weapon and see nothing about the target becoming invisible for foiling its attacks. This lets them figure out where the Adept is, and he dies to many 50% hits.

[The Glyphstone]

Whee, game back on tonight.


Got a mild conundrum, though - as it stands, the party's current 'quest' is to head up the Old Rhest Road and clear out any blockades there. Once that's done, though, I don't have an easy way to get them exploring into the Blackfens to find the razorspawn and/or meet the Tiri Kitor to kick off Rhest proper. Any suggestions?

EDIT: I got it. I'm rolling the Razorspawn into the blockade guards as a pet, and having a pair of captured wild elves and their (dead) as prisoners to rescue.

Week (technically) 9: In Which The Story Continues
Part 1: Crit Happens

After the month of downtime, everyone had forgotten the plot, but since only one person was keeping track of the plot to begin with, it didn't matter. In the interests of avoiding random timewasting, any more attacks on the increasingly massive refugee caravan were ignored or handwaved, and the action began again once they reached Talar, splitting off and heading north.

First up was an Easy Skirmish, as they rounded a hill and ran into a surprised hobgoblin patrol with their Bladebearer sergeant and a hellhound. Eccawin (sorceress) and Roland (the fighter) beat the hobbos to the draw, and one Hasted charge later, Roland was right up in the face of all 10 enemies. They, of course, proceeded to swarm him, doing about half of his health in total damage. Happily for everyone, that proved to be the most threatening thing that happened, with the slower Maya (Crusader) arriving the next turn and reducing the soldiers to hit-on-20's.

The Bladebearer got off one Sweeping Strike that injured Maya, but then it was Variel (Magus)'s turn, who walked up behind the mildly injured enemy and proceeded to land a brutal critical with a channeled Shocking Grasp through his Keen scimitar. With almost maximum damage on both normal and critical dice, I described the resulting effect as something akin to a Looney Toons cartoon, the hobgoblin's skeleton illuminating through his skin before he crumbled into charred ashes. With hellhound and Bladebearer down, the survivors scattered and were hunted down mercilessly.

They moved on, and a few hours of riding later, heard the noises of battle from over another hill just ahead. Cresting it, they discovered a tipped-over wagon surrounded by bodies and providing shelter to a young girl, who was firing magic missiles over it at a gang of goblins being shouted at by a skullcrusher ogre. As befits the sociopathic hobos noble heroes that they are, the party leaps into action, charging the unaware goblins and ogre in the flank. Roland's tradition of hitting with his shield and missing with his sword continued apace, with goblins unsuccesfully swarming him while the ogre thomped him with a morningstar a few times. He held out long enough for relief again, which came in the form of his melee backup and an alchemical bomb that fried all but one of the gobbos. Maya had slowed to get an Enlarge Person from Eccawin before engaging, and now plied it to great advantage, delivering a charge with her Giantbane spear over Roland's head and dead center into the ogre, scoring the second critical of the night. x3 weapons are nasty like that, and even without tripling the bonus dice, it oneshot the poor skullcrusher ogre.

Part 2: It's (Mountain) Hammer Time

Enemies dispatched and looted, they went to investigate their rescuee. She identified herself as a Miha Serani, and pointed out the bodies around as what had been her family - they had heard of an invading army from the west and fled north only to be ambushed by monsters. Suspicious, the group withdraw to discuss while the Alchemist brewed up an extract of See Lawful Evil Alignment and eyeballed her, getting nothing. Not quite satisfied, he did the same for Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil, also coming up negative. This satisfied their suspicions she was not a plant, and agreed to let her tag along for a bit on the grounds it was safer than sending her back to Talar alone.

More coconut clop-clopping with the new hanger-on riding with Eccawin, they finally arrived at what was obviously a blockade fence, a thick wooden palisade and watch tower blocking the road. With only two hobgoblins visible and two heavily armored party members, they said the hell with stealth, buffed, and marched straight up towards the gate while leaving the girl Miha to watch their horses. The sentries noticed them about a hundred feet out and promptly dropped the ball entirely, with most of the party knocking on the door before they could take actions, though one tripped and broke his neck fleeing after eating a Magic Missile in the face.

Maya knocked on the door a bit harder than the rest, to the tune of exactly 20 damage bypassing hardness and rendered it to splinters. Eight more hobgoblins, two skullcrusher ogres, and a Greenspawn Razorfiend waited for them, and Roland perpetuated his suicidal bravery by wading into the front and initiating a Combat Patrol. Several hobgoblins fell, but there were enough to crowd him and block the Razorfiend's ability to charge, while the ogres flung rocks. It got a nasty bite in, but proceeded to whiff horribly for the remainder of the fight while the party mauled through the defenders, including yet another spectacular critical spear one-shot kill from Maya on an ogre.

As their troops fell like wheat, the two sergeants made a break for it, one fleeing down the road while the other darted off to the side. Pursuing, the party found Sergeant #2 waiting with an unconscious wild elf and a knife to said elf's throat, demanding an escape for his life. There was some tense intraparty negotiation on if they could trust the evil monster, and more OOC negotiation on how far they could push their 'Good' alignments, but eventually they agreed, scooping up the captive while the hobgoblin fled into the woods. A bit of healing magic later and they were acquainted with Kelios of the Tiri Kitor, who had been on patrol with his friend Lanikar when they were shot down by hobgoblins. Two half-eaten giant owls were found in the razorfiend's nest, giving Lanikar's likely fate, which was confirmed when a war party of Tiri Kitor hunters arrived on the scene. Their leader was quite hostile at first, but the party managed to talk him down and they secured hospitality rights at Starsong Hill for rescuing one of the missing warriors. The horses were an issue for a bit, but eventually they just decided to let the beasts free since the owls couldn't carry them, and get replacements later.



Seekrit Stuffz

They had tripped an Alarm on the road, warning Miha ahead of time so she could stage her scene properly. The goblins and ogre accompanying her hadn't been told about the plan, so when she started blasting them in the back it was total confusion that set up authenticity. I actually felt a bit guilty when the party went to such lengths to check her for Evil auras, but I had left a few gaping holes in the 'scene' to spot. The bodies of the 'family' were cold and stiff if anyone had checked, belying their not-so-recent deaths, and if they had pushed further, Miha and her Undetectable Alignment would have registered no alignments at all, not even True Neutral. The players will never trust me again after this, but since the only remaining NPC who tries this sort of thing is Ulwai Stormcaller from the 'honorable enemy surrenders' angle, it should go off fairly well.

[Draz74]

I've never read a RHoD journal where Miha ended up being important before. I'm very interested to see what you do with her.

[The Glyphstone]

I've never read a RHoD journal where Miha ended up being important before. I'm very interested to see what you do with her.

I can post her statblock up if you want to see it (Aranea Rogue 4/Arcane Trickster 5). I've gone with a mix of sneaky spells for her role as an infiltrator (she's awful at fooling anyone but NPC mooks as written, and what kind of lousy infiltrator goes out without a way to hide her alignment?), and some general debuffs/screwy magic that she'll be able to ply with Tricky Spells to mess with the party midfight unnoticed. For the most part, though, her role will be spying on the party, using Message to relay her findings back to the Horde proper, so that future attacks on the group will be able to tailor themselves properly.

What I do with her will really depend on how long the party falls for her act. They seemed to have accepted her relying solely on the See Alignments, so she'll be the catalyst for some strangely well-informed lizardman attacks against Starsong Hill, and generally as much insider mayhem as I can get away with.

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Week 10: In Which The Module Briefly Goes Completely Off The Rails
This session started out with pizza, as a sort-of goodbye party for the alchemist's player before his move across the country to California in search of a job. Mala the crusader never actually showed up, but hopes that she would kept the Vanishing Plague at bay and her character as a nebulous maybe-there for the entire session.

Meeting The Council

The owl-borne riders arrived at Starsong Hill, and were 'given' a pair of huts to spend the night in, with a pair of guards stationed outside to emphasize that the gift wasn't optional. Somewhat bizarrely, this sent Roland's till-now-unmentioned paranoia off the rails, and he insisted on a standard watch schedule in the unlikely event that an elven ninja death squad was dispatched to murder them in their sleep. In the girl's tent, there was none of this nonsense and the four of them (including Miha) simply went to sleep, but Roland stayed up with Variel arguing for some time (about fifteen minutes of out-of-game time) about the need for constant vigilance, since the Tiri Kitor had shown they distrusted the party and thus shouldn't be trusted either. Eventually, Variel agreed just so he could trance in peace and they split the watch between the two of them as normal, while Bryen (the alchemist) snored away cheerfully.

The night was, naturally, utterly devoid of elven death ninjas, but they were kept in their huts until a little after noon the next day, when Killiar came to escort them to a meeting with the tribe's leaders. A bit of exposition describing the elven tree-town and they arrived at the temple of Desna that was replacing Corellan Latharian under the Pathfinder pantheon. There, they met the Chief Speaker, the High Priest of Desna Illian Snowmantle, and a younger elven woman who Roland's player OOC deduced immediately was likely related to the slain Lanikar - Trellara Nightshadow's own introduction IC confirmed this. Within a Zone of Truth put up by Illian, Sellyria Starsinger gave them a short, polite interrogation about their purpose in the area, which went well enough that the party were invited as guests in truth instead of prisoners. Ever the mercenary opportunists, they tried to get themselves hired to clear out the lizardfolk tribes that had been menacing the Tiri Kitor in unusual numbers recently, but while their prowess in slaying a harrowblade was welcome, Sellyria and Killiar felt their hunters would be sufficient for defense. Not sufficient enough to send aid to the towns in the south as well, despite the rather well-thought out argument that having humans for neighbors was better than having hobgoblins in their place, or at best burned-out ruins. The concluding Diplomacy checks blew away Sellyria and Illian, though Trellara was less convinced.


A-House-Ruling We Go

Miha wandered off to explore the camp ( :smallamused: ), while the party shopped for a Bag of Holding, requisitioned some boats, and immediately set off for Lake Rhest. With a bit of luck, they'd be killing the boss in time for dinner. Yeah. That was my reaction face too. Travelling through the marsh was uneventful - when they got to the lake, a bit of subtle prompting evoked a Perception check to disclose the ring of lizardman camps surrounding the ruins (I added a few, to supply mooks for later), along with the two intact structures in Rhest itself. As the bell tower was closer to shore, it was judged their first stop, and they began to paddle along the coast to the closest point opposite the tower. About 2/3 of the way there, the lizardfolk along the coastline spotted them, and half a dozen swimmers dove into the water and started heading for the trespassers. Now, bear in mind they were about 50 feet off the coast at this point, at least two of them in heavy metal armor, and the watch tower was 600 feet away. They decide to rush the watchtower and kill whoever's waiting there before the lizards catch up (the only person with Know: Local rolled awful and couldn't determine their swim speed). Some not-so-subtle prompting hinted that the lake was completely open without cover, but the previously inept performance of underleveled cannon fodder had left them with confidence that no one in the tower could hurt them.
The archers in the tower spotted them and opened fire at 500 feet, as typical. Split between two boats as they were, it would take 18 rounds to make contact with the tower base, with no possibility of return fire outside the 160ft range of Magic Missile.

As a delaying action, the Oracle summoned a Celestial Octopus to fight the lizardfolk in their wake, who lasted a grand total of one round before evaporating under a flurry of claws. For the most part, the -8 range penalty kept the barrage from having a noticeable effect, but the lizardfolk finally caught up with the party and a struggle ensued. With no set rules for capsizing rowboats, I improvised an opposed Strength check between the highest-Strength person in the boat and a lizardfolkd, with other people onboard allowed to Aid Another. Even with 3 lizards per boat, this resulted in Eccawin, Variel, and Mala being dumped into the water. A short, brutal combat ensued under continued arrow barrage and the ringing of the tower's alarm bell, as Bryen struggled to turn the surviving boat around before the lizardfolk capsized it as well, and Roland dove over the side to rescue Mala (more specifically, rescue her hideously expensive armor, the person inside was explicitly a side benefit) and help her back into the boat. Janice conjured a Celestial Dolphin and told it to right the fallen boat, to no avail, while Eccawin and Variel managed to climb aboard the intact one.

Then Regiarix showed up, emerging from his underwater lair and bursting into the air like a scaly missile just behind the tower, issuing a booming command to flee or be devoured. The lizardfolk tried to tip the boat again, then the question was brought up as to what happens when you cast Shocking Grasp into water, with the logic that it should naturally become an AoE. So I did, allowing it as a 5ft-burst AoE that did half damage on a failed Reflex save and no damage on a successful one. A few impromptu electrocutions later and half the lizardfolk were dead or dying, while the party turned and frantically paddled to shore. They would lick their wounds and return later than night for revenge - or so they thought.


The Battle of Starsong Hill, or Deus Ex Dragon Turtle

This time around, they stocked up on a pair of scrolls of Invisibility sphere, on the off-chance that the moonless night would not be enough to hide them from sentries. Darkness fell, and they geared up to leave -as they were almost to the boats, another Perception check picked up the sounds of combat from the direction of the sentry posts, in at least two directions. It seemed Starsong Hill was under attack, and debate ensued about what to do. Roland wanted to immediately continue on their planned excursion and leave the Tiri Kitor to defend themselves, a popular decision until it was pointed out OOC that the elves might not react well to the party skulking away in the dead of night in the middle of a huge attack. So after the obligatory 'let's split up' commentary, they headed towards the closest fighting noises as more alarms came from all around the perimeter, capped by the town's booming alarm signal. Four lizardfolk barbarians met them as they finished off the sentries, resulting in a severe mauling of Variel after he charged ahead of the rest of the group.

As usual, though, the goons were little threat, and they moved on to the second tower and its attackers met them halfway, with predictable results. Here, they got some unexpected aid, as Sellyria's crocodile companion appeared unexpectedly from the water and dragged a lizardfolk down with it, while Sellyria herself in eagle form was pecking at lizard eyes. That completed, she urged them on towards where a razorfiend was mauling elven warriors, so they rebuffed and went to fight the 'boss', reasoning this would be the last fight because it was getting late. Encountering the wounded razorfiend, they easily beat it down and were set to do a victory dance.

Cue a modified Dragon Turtle (switched the Capsize for a tyrannosaurus's Swallow Whole), charging from its hiding place underwater off the coast and snatching up the alchemist in a single bite, the real 'boss fight' of the night. The alchemist's player already knew he was going to be Worfed, but it still caught him by surprise too. The dragon turtle itself didn't last long, only getting off one cloud of steam breath weapon and chewing on the magus a bit, though it helped that the stomach action released the alchemist's remaining Waters of Lamashtu flasks to provide severe indigestion. We folded for the night with its death, and everyone leveled up to 7.

[Greenish]

"Tactics" are just fancy way of saying you don't know where the front door is and so can't just march there and kick it in.

[Saintheart]

"Tactics" are just fancy way of saying you don't know where the front door treasure/Macguffin is and so can't just march there and kick it in take it.

Fixed that for you. :)

Glyphstone, would you mind if I incorporated some of your thoughts on running RHOD under Pathfinder into the RHOD Handbook I've got in my signature? Nobody's really done an analysis on Pathfinder differences against this campaign as yet, and I'd been meaning to add a section on the subject? :smallsmile:

[The Glyphstone]

Sure, for what little analysis I've done.


EDIT: Personal notation, the game is on Night 20 as of this session.

Week 11: In Which Neither Tactics Nor A Good Title Can Be Found

Elves Gone Wild

When the dust settled and the sun had risen, the casualties stood at two dozen wild elves, including Killiar Arrowswift (elicting a small OOC cheer) against four times that many lizardfolk, a couple of greenspawn razorfiends, and one advanced dragon turtle. The party couldn't care less about the dead, eager to get back to the tower and kill people, but they decided to stick around anyways, since after a day of mourning there was going to be a night of feasting and celebration and drinking. Vast amounts of dragon turtle soup were had, washed down by elven wine, and off they went to try and storm the bell tower at night.

Travel to the lake, again, went flawlessly, navigating by starlight and the use of a bullseye lantern to keep a steady distance from shore. Once the boat was on approach to the bell tower, they fired off their first scroll of Invisibility Sphere and begin to paddle up to it. Reaching the tower and finding themselves stymied by a lack of doors at water level - only windows above - the flurries of whispered planning ensued, ranging from Flying up to the windows and trying to squeeze through, to making a tower on each other's shoulders and looking through the window first. Naturally, someone in the tower heard noises and decided to investigate. This prompted a further burst of planning where the initial idea was killing the person coming out, and expecting them to keep sending out guards one by one until the tower was empty. Exact mechanics ranged from making him Oppressively Bored and drowning him (this was shut down by the observation that bored =/= suicidal, so he would be thrashing and making noise as he drowned) to a Silent Shocking Grasp (more practical, but the splash of him falling in would still be audible). Finally, a bit of non-sociopathic sanity broke though and pointed out that letting him go by and return inside would show them how to get in. So, the disgruntled and very wet hobgoblin surfaces from the underwater doors, finds the elf boat, has a discussion with his sergeant up in the tower, and spear-prods the boat back off into the lake. The party had originally come with two boats, so he figured this was the second boat (which had been salvaged and tied up near the town hall) getting loose and drifting over. Prodding it away with a spear, he swam back inside, with the party following up behind after a safe wait.

What Goes Up Cannot Come Down
Emerging onto the second floor, they found three sleeping soldiers, though the splashing got a curious soldier from above to investigate again. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, they had snuck into position, Coup De Grace'ing all three of the sleepers, then beating the fourth on initiative and hammering him flat. Rushing up to the top floor one by one, they found the tower captain standing to block their way with a guard, while the last guard frantically hammered on the bell and elicting a collective 'oh crap'. They promptly began their attempted beatdown of the captain, but he turned out to be a Warblade in a Pearl of Black Doubt stance, frustrating the hasted dual-wielding fighter and spellstriking Magus to no end - even the Crusader couldn't land a solid hit. Eventually they realized the goon was helping him Shield Wall and took out the weaker links, but the captain still held out for an amazing 6 rounds before dropping, almost as long as Ozyrandion at Skull Gorge Bridge did while in much less favorable conditions. The finale took the form of a Toppling Magic Missile spell from the Magus that finally beat his CMD, and the resulting mass AoOs from his standing up - even under a Total Defense - obliterated him. There was celebration, and much rejoicing, while they planned a solid defense to crush anyone who rushed them up the stairs and hold the top level. A short discussion is held about how much the bell weighs and how much they could sell that much iron for.

Then Regiarax landed on the roof.

[The Glyphstone]

Week 12: In Which The Reaper Cometh Again

Not much to report this week, though it wasn't very satisfying from anyone's perspective.

It started off where we left off, as the dragon landed on the roof. Regiarax taunted them for a bit, and Saarvith joined in before swooping up and into the air again. The party was pinned down by a superior enemy in unfavorable conditions who had been briefed on their capabilities and were pre-buffed, so it was going to be an uphill battle even in the best of circumstances. Making the best of a bad situation, they forted up on the second floor of the tower, buffed and ready to fight anyone who stormed up the stairs.

Nothing happened for several minutes, until finally they noticed a faint sizzling sound from the other side of one wall that came and went. Regiarax was burning through the wall, one breath weapon at a time, and they braced to receive when it came down - the melee up against the wall with readied strikes, the casters further back. Finally, a hole burned through, to reveal the Wyrmlord and his mount hovering forty-odd feet out from the tower, nowhere near melee range. What ensued for about 10 rounds was a running battle of sorts as Regiarax made passes across the hole, Saarvith shooting at targets available with the occasional acid blast support. Return fire came in the form of the Magus's last few Magic Missiles and the fighter's so-far-untouched supply of chakrams, plus a single lightning bolt out of the sorcerer. In between strafing runs, the Oracle was patching up damage, but they were losing the attrition battle as far as they could tell (correctly), and that was before Regiarax began blinding them with darkness bubbles.

About now, the Magus noted he could cast Fly, adn had enough Arcane Pool to recover it once. Thus, the Fighter and the Crusader took the battle to the enemy, attempting to engage Regiarax in aerial melee. This went predictably poorly; three more rounds left the Fighter dead and the Crusader on single-digit hit points, though the rest of the party had taken the distraction time to play dead. The Crusader attempted to follow suit with a dramatic death scream and a plunge into the water, earning a delighted whoop of victory from Saarvith and his abysmal Sense Motive attempt. Regiarax was not fooled, and told her so, but had gotten bored with the fight and sick of Saarvith Saddle Shrieking at him nonstop and so told the Crusader to go home and not come back, collecting the fighter's corpse from the lake and flying back to the town hall. They crept back to Starsong Hill, bloodied and beaten, and probably raring for revenge.

[Draz74]

Owch.

I'm surprised more people don't use the tactic of grappling Saarvith and plunging with him into the water to let him drown.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, they only had 2 fly spells, and he was strapped into his saddle (which the Fighter discovered when he attempted a Shield Slam against the goblin). Plus, Saarvith here was outfitted with a Potion of Water Breathing, along with Unbreakable Heart on himself and Reggie, a Resist Energy on Reggie, and a Barkskin on himself. Miha's surveillance had given the two of them in-depth descriptions of the party's battle routine, so they were prepared, though I expect that will come back to bite her if they somehow take Saarvith alive.

[Anonomuss]

Thanks for sharing this campaign journal Glyphstone, i really enjoy reading it!

[The Glyphstone]

Glad to hear it.


No update this week due to scheduling conflicts, but Roland's player is bringing an Archery-based Fighter as a replacement, and the Alchemist's slot is being filled by a new player with a Barbarian (specifically, she's inheriting Trellara Nightshadow reworked up to PC level).

[The Glyphstone]

So, an interesting 4 weeks have passed due to irregular scheduling, the approach of finals, and other sundry distractions. This is 2 sessions with a 2-week gap between them.


Once More, With Feeling
The party licked their wounds and healed overnight, buying out the temple's stock of Water Walk, Air Walk, Water Breathing, and Resist Acid scrolls. After picking up Trellara, they headed out ready to brawl. Travel back to the lake was uneventful, and the lake itself was uneventful except for an easy stomping of a few random lizardfolk wandering around looting their dead tribesmate's camps. Playing smart this time, they lay low until Regiarax and Saarvith took off to go hunting, then fired off their last Sphere of Invisibility and paddled across the lake to the town hall. Four Skullcrusher Ogres were on guard, with two more sleeping, so they docked the boat and hurried up the stairs in a bundle, catching the roof guards unaware and killing the two sleepers outright in surprise rounds. The survivors hung on for a few rounds, while the patrollers pounded for help on the wall.

Down below, Nurklenak (rewritten to a Wizard 6/Mindbender 2) was just getting ready to start his torture session with his new captive, a fighter whom Regiarax had captured while out hunting the previous day. Now distracted, he left the captive tied down and went out to investigate, finding a band of warriors butchering his ogre guards and his ettin pet. The Crusader succumbed to a successful Dominate Person, but managed to break free when he ordered her to kill everyone else, forcing him to retreat back to his chambers with a pack of adventurers in pursuit. Out of options, he Charmed the fighter and sent him out to defend both of them while he hid Invisibly in the room. The fighter was beaten senseless with subdual, being half-naked and trying to engage melee warriors with a bow at close quarters, and Nurklenak almost got away until an unlucky sweep of the room with Detect Magic picked up his auras. He bolted, making it all the way out the building and almost to the hatchery before being Toppled with the party on his heels.
(Session break)
Turquoise Bicycle Shoes Actualize Radishly

Prone, in melee, and at 5 HP, Nurklenak tried for a Hail Mary shot and managed to get off his only prepared Confusion, catching the entire party and afflicting everyone but the sorceress. That meant he promptly died to a severe Lightning Bolt overkill, but the remaining 6 rounds of hilarity where the Oracle smacked himself in the face 3 times in a row, the Crusader and the Barbarian kept trading painful blows until the sane Sorceress intervened and hit the Crusader with Oppressive Boredom, and the Magus babbled a lot. A few times, they were worried the game would end in a self-inflicted TPK, but lucky rounds of lucidity got them to spread out and cower until the effect wore off.


Eggs-actly the right idea

Re-energized, they deduced that if Nurklenak had been running to the hatchery, it had something important, like loot.:smalltongue: One busted door down later and they had a ticked-off advanced Razorfiend facing them down, guarding her nest. Its first move was a Spring Attack that crit and dropped the Sorceress to negatives from full, but the Barbarian had the bright idea to distract it from finishing her off by smashing eggs. The matriarch didn't like this, and went to savage the barbarian instead. It had a lot of HP and hit hard, but never got another good crit off, and eventually fell to focused fire from everyone involved. Turns out the room had no loot, so they busted every egg in frustration.


Turning The Tables

That left only the dragon, and a lot of discussion. They were really low on resources, and weren't sure if they could risk another tangle with Regiarax but decided to go for it. A thorough exploration found Reggie's hoard room, a concealed chamber in an alcove loaded with loot and one Ghostlord's Phylactery, which they recognized as a phylactery but didn't know who or what it was and so kept it away. The alcove became their ambush point after they carted the ogre and ettin corpses into the razorfiend hatchery for hiding, so Regiarax and Saarvith came back to find their base deserted. Saarvith went to the hatchery, Reggie went to check the phylactery, and ran face-to-face with 6 adventurers with blood in their eyes. He lasted a grand total of one round, their surprise attacks followed by bombing his initiative and very lucky damage rolls on everyone's part. Saarvith arrived just in time to see him die, and the Lawful Good Fighter decided to murder the unarmed goblin because it was a goblin and there was no good reason to take the enemy general captive. The others disagreed and ended up grabbing him, expecting an interrogation and getting a perfectly cooperative Saarvith instead. The most important bit of info he had was the nature of the phylactery, and why it was being kept.

This was key, the party realized - with the Ghostlord as an ally, the Horde would be much more powerful. Without the phylactery, the Horde wouldn't be able to control him. So....they decide to destroy the phylactery.

:smallconfused::smalleek::smallconfused:

[Draz74]

Dun dun DUUNNNNH.

[Saintheart]

Another party that wants to stomp the phylactery?

Oh well, if you want to be an utter sod to them you can always...

have Ulwai, Varanthian, AND the Ghostlord along with Kharn in the final battle at Brindol :smallamused: :smallamused: :smallamused:

[Taelas]

:smalleek:

I don't understand anyone who does this. The Ghostlord obviously can't know where the phylactery is, or he'd just... go and get it... so destroying the phylactery has absolutely zero effect on the Ghostlord's loyalty to the Red Hand. It's about the worst thing the party can do. Even if the Ghostlord finds out the phylactery is destroyed, he might well be enraged enough to help the Red Hand anyway.

I guess your party'll just have to deal with ghost lions in the Battle for Brindol...

[The Glyphstone]

Well, their logic (specifically, the logic of the fighter who's proposing this plan) is that the Ghostlord knows the Red Hand has his phylactery, so if they break it, he'll assume the Red Hand violated their deal and betrayed him (before he's given them their bonedrinkers, but they don't know this). Oh, and their backup plan is to do this in the morning, so they can kill him if he comes to take revenge (his existence as a Druid 5/Ur-Priest 7 nonwithstanding, not that they know this).

He doesn't know where the phylactery is, but through divination magic he can find out who broke it, so I'm currently quite torn between deliberately TPKing them with a ticked-off and vengeful Ghostlord and having a brand-new party replace them a few weeks later at Brindol, or have the Ghostlord + associates in all his fury just join the Battle for Brindol. The former will make the "oh, we screwed up bad" aspect immediately pointed, and possibly break the feeling of invulnerability they seem to have developed, but also earn accusations of railroading for not following the plot. I've telegraphed the 'this is a bad plan' as hard as I can without outright stating it, but they're for the most part not listening. The latter - well, they're PCs - cause and effect have little meaning, so they'll likely forget they did anything by the time the consequences hit.

[Taelas]

But how would the Ghostlord even know that his phylactery has been destroyed?

Nothing in the rules give a lich the ability to detect that his phylactery is destroyed, and if he could divine the fact that it is destroyed, why could he not divine its location?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

[The Glyphstone]

But how would the Ghostlord even know that his phylactery has been destroyed?

Nothing in the rules give a lich the ability to detect that his phylactery is destroyed, and if he could divine the fact that it is destroyed, why could he not divine its location?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

There aren't any rules regarding phylacteries period other than the money you spend to create them and the Rejuvenation ability. Without the phylactery, the lich loses Rejuvenation, and it doesn't make any sense that something like that could happen without the lich even being aware of it. There's no divination involved in knowing it's destroyed, just the sudden emptiness where that feeling of completeness used to be, like having a body part amputated. For story-backed evidence to this possibility, look at the Lion's Heart magic item in his sanctum - he's linked to it and knows if anyone damages it, it seems incredibly silly he would have this sort of bond with a undead-creating artifact but not an item that defines his existence.

As for scrying - he's supposed to be a cautious, long-term planner. This is admittedly a cascade of effects from me rewriting him - as printed, the Ghostlord is horribly weak, the Horde doesn't need blackmail to keep him in line, so he probably has and does divine its location on a regular basis He can't teleport, though, and has been told that if he ever leaves his stronghold, the phylactery will be broken. Break it, though, and all bets are off - he has nothing left but revenge, after butchering the intruders in his base unless they can convince him otherwise.

[Saintheart]

There aren't any rules regarding phylacteries period other than the money you spend to create them and the Rejuvenation ability. Without the phylactery, the lich loses Rejuvenation, and it doesn't make any sense that something like that could happen without the lich even being aware of it. There's no divination involved in knowing it's destroyed, just the sudden emptiness where that feeling of completeness used to be, like having a body part amputated. For story-backed evidence to this possibility, look at the Lion's Heart magic item in his sanctum - he's linked to it and knows if anyone damages it, it seems incredibly silly he would have this sort of bond with a undead-creating artifact but not an item that defines his existence.

As for scrying - he's supposed to be a cautious, long-term planner. This is admittedly a cascade of effects from me rewriting him - as printed, the Ghostlord is horribly weak, the Horde doesn't need blackmail to keep him in line, so he probably has and does divine its location on a regular basis He can't teleport, though, and has been told that if he ever leaves his stronghold, the phylactery will be broken. Break it, though, and all bets are off - he has nothing left but revenge, after butchering the intruders in his base unless they can convince him otherwise.

In passing, these issues are also complicated by the fact blighters don't get Scrying. Consequently, if you don't have the mechanic in there that the Ghostlord senses the destruction of his phylactery, the players "earning his undying enmity" as RHOD puts it will only happen via propaganda from the Red Hand.

I'd venture, though, that Ulwai as written has a decent chance of convincing the Ghostlord to join the Red Hand willingly. These odds I think are improved by the destruction of his phylactery. Consider: soon as he realises the phylactery's destroyed, he goes looking for Ulwai. She can truthfully say that the Red Hand didn't do it. She's also a masterful liar, blah blah blah, and particularly if she feeds the Ghostlord both the prospect of more test subjects being supplied from Brindol's populace together with a chance to have his revenge on the characters who destroyed his phylactery, that should convince him not to wipe every hobgoblin in the stone lion and join up with the Red Hand. As it is the Ghostlord is insane to come hunting after a party that destroyed his phylactery when he hasn't picked up a replacement and is therefore highly vulnerable, but that's the module for you.

Also in passing -- remember that the players aren't expected to face ghost lions at Brindol. I think there's support in the text for the idea that they're thought too hard to control without the Ghostlord's direct presence at all times, as opposed to the lesser bonedrinkers that can at least be pushed by the Hand's clerics.

[The Glyphstone]

Yeah, the module was a little illogical there in the lack of being able to know who broke his phylactery already, but that's on top of the 'incredibly scary and powerful Ghostlord' being a total punk. his most powerful spell is a CL11 Flame Strike, and he has 77 HP. He's not a danger even to the Red Hand, and the 8th-level Barbarian in my party does >77 HP in a single full attack, before the other 5 members of the party do anything to chime in. The rebuild to Druid 5/Ur-Priest 7 at least makes him tough enough once buffed to handle a round or two of attacks, and one Blasphemy will really ruin their day once he gets a turn, even using PF's nerfed version.

I'm leaning more towards having the consequences come back to bite them later rather than immediately - those are good reasons for Ulwai to get the Ghostlord to cooperate more willingly. With the rebuilt ability to Scry but no quick travel, he needs to keep his end of the deal if he wants revenge. The odds of the PCs actually learning anything either way is slim, but this way feels less like retributive DM wrath for jumping off the rails (in addition to them being a level lower than expected when Battle for Brindol occurs.)

[Grendus]

I dunno. The way I see it, there are three possible consequences:
1. The Ghostlord goes berserk, kills the goblins in his cave and withdraws his support. That's what they thought would happen, and with the Ghostlord as written it's not so far fetched. With him rebuilt as an Ur-Priest though, it's unlikely unless he's completely unstable. He has the ability to find out what actually happened, and considering how important his phylactery was to him the odds of him not finding the truth and seeking revenge are low.
2. The Ghostlord allies with the goblins to pursue vengeance. This is possible, given that he now has divination to prove the goblins didn't destroy his phylactery and Ulwai is fairly persuasive. It does presume that he quickly forgives them for twisting his arm though. Depends on whether or not you think he'd forgive them.
3. The Ghostlord kills the goblins and sets out to pursue vengeance on his own. I'd be sorely tempted to go with this one, for two reasons. First off, he hated the goblins forcing him into service. Granted, he hates everyone, but the goblins directly earned his ire. Now that they don't have any leverage on him, he doesn't need to work with them. Secondly, it's a good way to punish the players with the reasonable consequences of their actions without it seeming like you're punishing them for going off the rails. The Ghostlord is a very dangerous enemy, and if you play him as the planner and strategist he is likely a TPK. Give them the victory points for convincing the Ghostlord not to support the Red Hand, but have him show up with a few undead monstrosities when they least expect it.

I'd at least make a few diplomacy checks from Ulwai to see if he still supports the Red Hand. Who knows, maybe they flub the roll and he decides to just hole up in his cave and build a new one...

[Saintheart]

The rebuild to Druid 5/Ur-Priest 7 at least makes him tough enough once buffed to handle a round or two of attacks, and one Blasphemy will really ruin their day once he gets a turn, even using PF's nerfed version.

That's actually a really interesting rebuild for him, and actually fits just as well as the original PrC does. Would you mind reporting back on how well it worked against your party, and if it does do all right, could I include it in the handbook?

[BerronBrightaxe]

Good to read that there are still people out there, like me, who are running the adventure.

glhf!!

[The Glyphstone]

That's actually a really interesting rebuild for him, and actually fits just as well as the original PrC does. Would you mind reporting back on how well it worked against your party, and if it does do all right, could I include it in the handbook?

Happily. Backstory-wise, whether or not they ever get a chance to talk to him, the idea is pretty much that he turned against the gods after they turned against him and didn't save his 'children' from the invading army. Same flavor, except he got more powerful instead of crippling himself.




I dunno. The way I see it, there are three possible consequences:
1. The Ghostlord goes berserk, kills the goblins in his cave and withdraws his support. That's what they thought would happen, and with the Ghostlord as written it's not so far fetched. With him rebuilt as an Ur-Priest though, it's unlikely unless he's completely unstable. He has the ability to find out what actually happened, and considering how important his phylactery was to him the odds of him not finding the truth and seeking revenge are low.
2. The Ghostlord allies with the goblins to pursue vengeance. This is possible, given that he now has divination to prove the goblins didn't destroy his phylactery and Ulwai is fairly persuasive. It does presume that he quickly forgives them for twisting his arm though. Depends on whether or not you think he'd forgive them.
3. The Ghostlord kills the goblins and sets out to pursue vengeance on his own. I'd be sorely tempted to go with this one, for two reasons. First off, he hated the goblins forcing him into service. Granted, he hates everyone, but the goblins directly earned his ire. Now that they don't have any leverage on him, he doesn't need to work with them. Secondly, it's a good way to punish the players with the reasonable consequences of their actions without it seeming like you're punishing them for going off the rails. The Ghostlord is a very dangerous enemy, and if you play him as the planner and strategist he is likely a TPK. Give them the victory points for convincing the Ghostlord not to support the Red Hand, but have him show up with a few undead monstrosities when they least expect it.


Of the two, Ulwai would have to really bomb the check to upset him and cut off his help entirely. I'm tempted to go with a mixture of 2 and 3, because he is a very long-term planner. I like the notion that they could re-buy his loyalty with an offer of mass sacrifices from the town (possibly to rebuild said phylactery) in addition to revenge on the culprits who broke the first one. He's smart enough to know he can't get to his targets inside a fortified city alone, so letting the Horde lead the way makes it easier and probably gets a bunch of them killed in the process. All else failed, once his phylactery is repaired, he can secure it more effectively and take his revenge on the Red Hand as well, and he doesn't want to risk the 'heroes' dying in defense of Brindol and depriving him of his revenge entirely.


Also...why the heck did it take until now for anyone to start commenting?:smallbiggrin:

[CheshireCatAW]

For myself at least, life got in the way. I've been following you for a while now with great anticipation. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

[Taelas]

I've been reading a while, I just didn't have anything in particular to comment on before now.

I should have made at least a single post to note my interest, but I'm afraid apathy got the better of me.

[Rubik]

Count me in on the ranks of the intrigued!

[The Glyphstone]

I guess I was just spoiled by previous journals.

Good news, there will be an update this week. Bad news, it'll be another 3 weeks after that before the next update, since it's finals week and then spring break.

[The Glyphstone]

Of Goblins And Guardians

The session started off slightly time-bent to allow for a re-interrogation of the captured and coerced Saarvith. They got a description of each of the surviving Wyrmlords and dragons, fixating on the description of Abiothrax and his ability to breathe fire that clung to people and cooked them to the bone and Kharn's openly telegraphed nature as a Warblade. Since the topic of the Red Hand's intelligence was never brought up, Miha remained safe, nor was the source of the army's weaponry considered (the PCs have consistently remarked how flush with masterwork weapons the Red Hand is, to the point where I've designed a whole extra wing of the Fane of Tiamat with duergar-staffed forges simply to explain that question).

My Saarvith also happened to be an avid story-listener - he'd figured out that books had valuable secrets if them if you could avoid getting your words sucked out, so his solution was to have Regiarax intimidate the books into behaving then read the stories inside to his friend. Once they'd milked him for all the questions they had to ask, they did let him go with his bow and his sack of books, last seen paddling off towards the north in search of goblin tribes who weren't horribly oppressed by hobgoblins.


In Which The Plot Comes Tumbling Down

And then, the other celestial elephant in the room, the Ghostlord's phylactery. IC, they had also asked Saarvith about this, and knew the Ghostlord was under duress to manufacture an undead army to aid the Red Hand. Of the party, the sorceress wasn't there, the magus didn't chime in at all, and the barbarian only once offered an idea of using the phylactery as a bribe. That left the fighter, oracle, and crusader to argue.
- The fighter opened up strong advocating to destroy it, because giving it back to the lich would be benefiting him, and they could not risk any action that would help an evil creature like a lich. Concerns of this earning the lich's personal emnity were brushed off under the general heading of 'We're badass, we'll kill him if he shows up'.
-The Crusader was indecisive and leaning towards returning the phylactery, on the grounds that if they gave it back, there'd be a 50-50 shot the lich would cooperate or kill them anyways, but smashing it would give a 100% chance he would want them dead.
-The Oracle didn't like the idea of helping an undead monster, being a worshipper of Seranae, but was receptive to weakening the Hand by disrupting this alliance and giving them a two-front war to fight (having no intel, they've decided the Ghostlord is a Lich King-like leader of a vast army, and made no efforts to confirm otherwise). For him, it was an issue of personal code versus greater good.
-Discussion of the Lich not having taken back his phylactery ensued, and it was decided they wouldn't be his target because if he was able to scry on his phylactery, then he would have Teleported to come get it.:smallconfused: Amusingly, they also around this point came to the conclusion that because Ulwai Stormcaller was watching the Ghostlord and, unlike the other Wyrmlords, had no dragon partner, she was an amazing combat badass and gave vowed to stay out of her way at all costs.

In the end, the Fighter prevailed, and they took the phylactery to an empty part of the swamp to have the Crusader Mountain Hammer it to pieces. A few blows later, it cracked and shattered. Off-screen, the Ghostlord immediately rushed to his scrying focus to seek out the person holding the remains of his phylactery - a hefty +8 bonus to the save, but since it was the Crusader who had already spent her Zealous Surge for the day, she failed miserably. Since he could not, in fact, Teleport, he was only able to watch helplessly as they discussed very openly how this would cause him to turn against the Red Hand, and buy them time while he built a new phylactery and then came for revenge. The fact that liches can live forever never crossed their mind, nor did the consideration if a phylactery can be replaced (see below). In the end, he settled for whispering some threatening Messages through the scrying sensor, then dismissing the spell while the party frantically scanned the area for invisible sensors or hidden enemies.


Off To Brindol
They returned to Starsong Hill, paid off their scroll debts, and got assurance that the Tiri Kitor would be coming to Brindol's aid when the time came. With their horses rounded up, they headed off to ride, taking Miha along with them. Brindol would be a day and a half's ride away, so they rode as far as possible then bedded down for the night in an abandoned barn, setting a fire outside so the people on sentry duty could see. I briefly considered having the two Greater Barghests leading the ambush squad phase through the barn wall, but TPKing the party in their sleep before a 3-week recess was a bit harsh, so they came in with Hobgoblins clustered inside their Invisibility Spheres instead. The Magus's amazing perception roll of 32 trounced the Hobbo Regulars, even with a +20 from invisibility, so he picked up a suspicious bunch of magical shimmers and mumbling voices, but chose to stand his ground while the barbarian sharing watch went to the barn to wake up the others. This proved to be his downfall, as he was then alone when the entire skirmish line of 8 warriors and two Greater Barghests broke cover to charge from close range, having already pre-buffed with Bull Strength. He managed to last one round, though this was enough to snare most of the Regulars and one of the Barghests with his newly learned Slow spell. The squad was promptly Enlarged, though, and he got beaten into negatives on their action.

Meanwhile, the party spent a round waking up and getting active, lamenting their lack of heavy armor. The Fighter managed to down 3 Regulars in one full attack, while the Crusader and Oracle headed to back up the Barbarian. This unfortunately left him the only exposed target, so he ate a Charm Monster in the face, bombed his Opposed Charisma check to not harm any of the hobgoblins or barghests, and was basically a spectator for the remainder of the conflict. It was up to the Barbarian and the Crusader, but they had the situation in hand for the most part. Regulars dropped left and right, having only 13 HP even when giant-sized, and while the barghest's got in a few good licks, one ate the bad end of a Terrible Remorse spell and crumbled under concentrated full-attack goodness. This set the other Barghest to cut its losses and retreat, stopping only briefly to rip the limp Magus's throat out and using his 1 remaining soldier as a distraction and speed-bump.

With the fight done, the topic turned to finding a way to get the Magus alive again, if he wanted to come back (the player was probably dropping out for next term to focus on studying). Plans ranged from cutting off his hand and paying for a Resurrection (too expensive) to systematically breaking all of his limbs to where he would be able to fit into a Handy Haversack. They finally settled for the ridiculous alternative plan of tying him to the horse his demise had left unoccupied and leading it on a string. The remainder of the trip to Brindol was uneventful, and we aborted as they were being summoned to meet Lord Jaarnath in the keep.
[/spoiler]

For those of you counting, this is Day 23. The Red Hand has overrun Drelin's Ferry and is 1 day out from sacking Tarrelton (after factoring in a 5-day penalty for enlisting the Twisttusk giants and destroying Skull Gorge Bridge).

On Phylacteries: The only WotC-printed source of info, The Book Of Better Than It's Given Credit For Latin, says a Phylactery cannot be replaced once destroyed. For the purposes of the campaign, this won't matter - if the Ghostlord takes to the field at all, it'll be during the Siege of the Cathedral at the end of the Battle of Brindol and then only to be Kharn's pet healer. I'm uncertain as to the larger idea, though, and torn between the one-time deal nature LM presents and something different.

For example, I kinda liked one idea I came up with, that the 'unspeakably evil ritual' involved in a phylactery's creation must be topped if it is replaced with an even more unspeakably evil atrocity...say, a human sacrifice must have its ante upped to the ritual sacrifice of an entire town or city. This would still put a cap on how many 'free lives' said lich gets due to sheer economy of scale and the likelihood of uppity heroes taking him down beforehand, but still possible.

I have 3 weeks to come up with stuff to fill the, ironically, 3 weeks in-game before the Horde attacks, so ideas and suggestions are welcome.

[Grendus]

Question - by my count the Ghostlord only has a CL of 9.5, so 10 if you round up. How did he become a lich?

[Taelas]

Practiced Spellcaster will do it.

[The Glyphstone]

Question - by my count the Ghostlord only has a CL of 9.5, so 10 if you round up. How did he become a lich?

There's a Pathfinder Trait that works like Practiced Spellcaster at half strength - +2 to a single CL, max your HD. So as Druid 5/Ur-Priest 7 and the trait, he ends up as CL11.5 or 12. I could also give him Practiced Spellcaster to max out his CL at 14.

[Taelas]

Practiced Spellcaster only works up to your HD; Druid 5/Ur-Priest 7 is HD 12. So it'd be redundant for him.

[The Glyphstone]

Practiced Spellcaster only works up to your HD; Druid 5/Ur-Priest 7 is HD 12. So it'd be redundant for him.

Right, for some reason I was counting his LA points as well. As long as he can still cast his 7th level spells with CL12, it's all good though.

[Taelas]

You generally round fractions down (even if they are .5 or higher), so it'd be CL 11. Practiced Spellcaster isn't completely redundant, I suppose.

[Saintheart]

Of Goblins And Guardians
[spoiler]I have 3 weeks to come up with stuff to fill the, ironically, 3 weeks in-game before the Horde attacks, so ideas and suggestions are welcome.

If I remember right Miha Serani is still running around, isn't she?

One plotline I looked into for my own RHOD campaign but subsequently dropped involves the halflings of Brindol. They've got their own Temple of Yondalla, and on RHOD apparently the leading cleric of that temple has done a lot to dispel the stereotypes surrounding her people - i.e. that according to Cityscape they're generally untrustworthy little buggers when in cities.

Aside from Miha generally looking to gain intelligence at Brindol, she also is working to destabilise or otherwise gain avenues for the Red Hand to get in. She could link up with the halfling population for these purposes - fighting a squad of evil halflings could be a nice change of pace, maybe. Some thoughts for what Miha is planning...


Gain a means for Skather to enter and scout out the city. It's never explained exactly how he manages to bust into and then set up Discreet Departures for a sniper strike. Maybe he does that via the northern side of the city -- the Elsir River, which of course is guarded or watched unless the halflings create a distraction or an entry point. The trick, of course, being that the halflings have to succeed.
Gain a means via the halflings to take out the Death God's temple clerics - Wee Jas has a temple here, and supposedly the clerics are astute at taking out the undead, which would be an impediment to the Ghostlord's troops as they attack the place. Thus there's an arrangement to bring in a couple of corpses infected with Hellwasp Swarms to take out the clerics (the Wee Jas clerics are responsible for funerals and body disposals, so best way to hit them is to put something in there.) Again, have to turn to the halfling population for support because the Black Knives won't turn against Brindol (or will they?)
Miha's arranging for a halfling uprising or attack on strategic points during the battle, which the heroes have to stop before the agreement is reached?

[The Glyphstone]

Indeed. In fact, she's still accompanying the party up to this point, in her guise as a 16-year old girl with weak sorcerer powers. I may not be able to keep her hanging around with them anymore after Brindol, but that leaves openings for sabotage.

The halfling plots might not work, though, because all the civilians have been evacuated at this point in the timeline. A targeted pre-emptive strike against the clerics of whoever Golarion's analogue to Wee Jas is wouldn't go amiss though. Pharasma, apparently.

[The Glyphstone]

Memory is foggy, but this was last week's update.

Nobles, As Useless As Ever
-The group met the Brindol Council, recounting their story and introducing themselves to Lord Jaarmath and the other councilors. Somehow, they completely forgot to mention that they had bargained for aid from the Tiri Kitor elves, that might be a problem later, though they did manage to explain in detail how they had shattered the alliance between the Red Hand and a powerful lich by destroying his phylactery (though in the process, passing the Religion check to know what they had done was irreversible). Miha left the group here, introduced only as a refugee they had picked up along the way - she was given directions to where the city's remaining civilians were gathered, though naturally she instead went off to hide somewhere and will be causing havoc wherever possible, starting at the Temple of Pharasma. She also laced the PC's rations with some barbazu skin shavings, giving them all Devil Chills that'll finish its incubation next session. :)

Departing, they decided it was time to go shopping-by-proxy, giving their hard-looted treasure objects to Immerstal the Red for his next Teleport to the capital of Cheliax for purchasing war supplies, along with a list of their desired magical items. I decided to really play up Immerstal's "tower-wizard" personality, making him immaculately dressed and coifed, jeweled, and incredibly snooty and arrogant (particularly towards the sorceress), which got a bit of fun. In the process, they also passed on the information they had gotten about the dragon, learning that Abiothrax was feeding from a sort of infernal lava rock called pyrestone, which would give a fiery breath attack or a fire-based elemental spell the ability to cling to its enemies and burn them (Clinging Breath feat, or the Burning Spell metamagic for free as a bonus component). In the end, the party was about 5K richer apiece from their accumulated art objects, minus one object the fighter decided he had to keep. I had decided to amuse myself when I rolled up a 'jade-studded brass mug' worth 500GP, and instead described it as "A brass mug of excellent craftsdwarfship studded with jade and engraved with an elephant and a goblin. The goblin is burning." No one in the group got the joke. :(

Through Rain or Sleet or Snow...
They also went drinking - since the Thirsty Zombie tavern was the only operable bar left after the evacuation, its proprietor was able to charge extortion-level prices for his heavily watered-down ale and get away with it. The crusader decided to go fishing instead, spearing a few fat trout and selling them for some coin, while the sorceress set up a small side business casting Prestidigitation on people's beer to make it taste better. The oracle helped out with making Holy Water at the temple, but downtime was boring, so everyone jumped when Jaarmath asked them to do a task for him. After buying war supplies, he had ordered the remainder of the city's treasury - close to 40,000GP in silver, gold, and platinum - boxed up and sent to Citadel Dinyar, five days to the north and the home of the Order of the God-Claw Hellknights, a tribute payment and request for their aid in battle. Unfortunately, the escort had failed to Send back a status report the second day, leading to suspicion of foul play or ambush.

They pushed their horses to the limit, managing to run down the caravan, though not after it had already been attacked. Four ettins and a dozen goblins were squabbling over loot, though the arrival of new defenders earned their united attention. One collective epic fail on initiative later, it was a mass melee, hampering the sorceress's AoE spells and causing problems for the archer. In particular, he got ganged up on by goblins, stacking Aid Anothers and allowing the largest ettin to wail him deep into negatives with two full attacks (surviving a full attack at 5HP from him in the process, which frustrated him immensely). Only one of the group's horses was slain in the end, though several had been knocked into negatives by the goblins only to be repeatedly healed by the Oracle. When the dust had settled, they examined the chests, all locked, and a sealed letter with the escort captain's Sending Stones. A great discussion erupted here...not if they should steal the cash, but if they should open the letter, because tampering with the Hellknights' mail was apparently a bad idea (but stealing their money was not). The lack of an easy way to launder the coins was the deciding factor, so they Sent a message explaining the situation and resolved to deliver the bribe tribute to Dinyar themselves.

[The Glyphstone]

An Apple A Day...
The morning started with everyone making Fortitude saves, to their concern. Only the archer succumbed, though, to the tune of a few points of Strength damage. The Oracle healed it and they moved on. The next day, though, it was the Crusader and the Sorceress who felt the affects, to a bit more worry. Day 3 of the trip saw the Crusader, Sorceress, and Oracle all feeling the uncontrollable shivering and bone-aches; the Oracle finally decided to roll some Knowledge checks and identified their symptoms as those of Devil Chills. This confused the archer, because they hadn't fought any devils since the Greater Barghests, who A) weren't devils, and B) didn't spread disease. They suspect invisible undead, making the Oracle stay up all night with Detect Undead going, to no avail.

Still, they were keeping apace with Lesser Restorations against the symptoms, and eventually it would work itself out. This meant Day 4, where the Barbarian, Sorceress, and Fighter again felt the effects, was quite unnerving, causing some extreme out-of-character confusion for a few people as to how they were being re-infected. During this, they were visibly being followed by a pair of large, bird-like creatures, but the two drew out of range after eating an arrow from the archer, and didn't bother the party till they got to Citadel Dinyar.

To Hell(Knights) and Back

With their wagons of cash, they trundled up the steep path to Dinyar, where they met the gate guards and explained the situation. A lot of cutscene-induced waiting occurred, then they were brought inside to meet the Lictor. He questioned them for a bit on what they knew of the Red Hand, what its numbers and composition were, its leaders, what Lord Jaarmath and the defenders of Brindol were doing to hold them off, and their expectations of success. A bit more waiting, and he agreed to dispatch a group of Knights to aid Brindol when the time came for battle. They ended up staying an extra night - luckily, in the guest quarters and not the prisoner cells - so that the Signifiers would be able to Cure their diseases, which they did.

At least, until the next morning, when the Devil Chills were back on several people. This was causing out-of-character frustration now, so I broke up the tempo the following night with an aerial attack by the two Deadborn Vultures and their goblin riders. It was only a brief fly-by raid, but enough to prevent a good night's sleep.


Death From Above

The next night, though, they tried again, starting with raucous taunts and fly-by swoops against whoever was at first watch (the Archer). This happened to be the archer, who ended up falling out of the tree he was perched in - the noise woke up the rest of the group, but the vulture riders promptly retreated out of visual range. They were still audible, circling above, but when they didn't return to active attack, the rest of the party went back to sleep.

Naturally, they came back for an attack, another quick fly-by that left them uninjured entirely and waking everyone up again. The sorceress was getting very cranky by now, as were a few other people. Second watch rolled around (the Barbarian) - rather than go for a physical attack this time, the raiders started pelting her with pinecones. They didn't do damage, and weren't accurate, but eventually she got annoyed enough to start raging and attempting to throw stuff blindly back at them into the sky. This woke the party up...again...and the riders retreated out of view. Once the very irritated sleep-deprived people had gone back to bed, they returned, resuming their bombardment.

Third watch had them return after a period of silence, in which they were assumed to have gone off to collect more pinecones or something. Now the Oracle was awake and able to speak Goblin, so he could trade insults with the riders. This bothered them to the point where they made another physical dive-bomb attack, earning surprise and scoring a few nasty hits. Unfortunately, third watch included the Crusader, Sorceress and Oracle, so the retaliation obliterated one of the two goblins even before the rest of the party could wake up. The surviving goblin and two vultures decided to scram and left the party alone for the rest of the night.


Ration-ality at last

More devil chill saves, and the party concludes that the vultures must have some sort of devil-chill-spreading aura. Attempting to avoid them, they decide to camp off the road this time, using Survival to find a comfortable place with trees blocking the sky. This works, though, it doesn't stop the Chill attacks. By now, the archer's player is hopping mad - it's a problem he can't figure out out of character or in character, even after they return to the city, get Cured again by the clerics, and find themselves promptly re-infected the next day. Finally, the Barbarian's player suggests it might be in their food, and a Detect Disease later, they are discarding all of the rations they got from the Tiri Kitor laced with barbazu venom.

The issue dealt with, they resolve to make a surgical strike against the Red Hand, hoping to eliminate Abiothrax's supply of pyrestones, and if lucky, kill Abiothrax himself.

BUT WILL THEY? DUN DUN DUN.....

[Zombimode]

You really dont pull your punches, do you? :smallbiggrin:

Thats DMing to my taste. Entertaining to read, too :smallsmile:

[The Glyphstone]

It's a response to the general attitude of complacency they have. All of the PCs are fairly well optimized for their available material, considering all but the Crusader are drawing solely from Pathfinder books - between the archer, the Crusader, the barbarian, and the sorceress, they can lay waste to a level-appropriate encounter in a round or two without any noticeable damage in most cases. They're not really worried about anything they can shoot/stab in the face, so I'm working in problems they can't shoot/stab. Plus, The Red Hand is aware of their power, so its agents are avoiding direct confrontations and switching to ambushes and harrassment tactics.

I'll be making it up to them next week with a nice dragon raid, if they play it smart (I just hope they remember Resist Fire this time).

[Draz74]

Good way to make Miha Serani matter. At least for now.

[The Glyphstone]

A Spy In The Ranks
Rolling right along from where we left off, the party goes to find Immerstal and puts in orders for a few magic items to buy with their new gold. The archer has noticed that he's the only person who both a) fights outside of melee range, and b) lacks low-light vision...in fact, the only other person without LLV is the crusader. So he buys some Eyes of the Owl to solve that, while the Oracle cashes out for a wand of Dream Feast to ensure no one manages to poison their food again, said food being imaginary.

The next day, they're dubbing around when alarms sound out from the city walls, heralding an inbound attack group of unidentified fliers. Luckily, they get to the walls in time to stop the militia from shooting down the Tiri Kitor hunters...the party had mentioned the elven reinforcements, but completely forgot to say they'd be coming by air. This was not entirely bad, as it turned out, because the elves arrived burned and wounded, having been ambushed along their route by a mixed force of hobgoblins, ogres, vulture riders, and the red dragon. The former two had been useless though, indicating that whoever tipped off the Hand also didn't know about the aerial approach. It had to be someone at the Council meeting, though, narrowing it down to the Council themselves, Speaker Winston, Miha, and the two nameless guards. The party's top three suspects became Lady Kal, Tredora Goldenbrow (the high priestess), and one of the guards.

GAAAAAH.:smallsigh:

Dragon Them By The Nose

Tactical planning ensues. First plan is to get really fast horses and ride back to Starsong Hill, hoping to run into the dragon along the way and kill it.:smallconfused: This takes a critical hit to the logic and is discarded. Instead, they decide to take really fast horses and make a surgical strike against the Hand, looking to destroy the dragon's pyrestones and hopefully the dragon was well. A bit of prompting gets them to accept scouting aid from the elves, who are doing it anyways, rather than go haring off immediately, so they spend the rest of the day hanging around. Elves come back, and ask them which dragon they were going after - the Red, or the Silver?
??? all around. It turns out the Red Hand captured a Young Silver Dragon at some point and is hauling it along, chained up and dragged by giants. The party skids on some mental ice for a bit, then decides that rescuing a dragon to add to their defenses is more important than taking out Abiothrax (they can do that later, apparently). The Oracle goes off to chat with Priestess Goldenbrow for a bit to see if she might be a secret Red Hand agent, and then with some of the random clerics to see if the entire Church is actually a sleeper cell. Yeah. She does score high enough on Gather Information to learn about the local thieves' guild, their exodus from Brindol before the attack, and Lady Kaal's...ahem...close involvements with the head thief.


Fly, You Fools

They get fast horses, their new items, and ride off, through the night and day to cut around the Red Hand's flank. For those who are counting, they will be engaging on their raid at BoB-8. Their plan, while good on the 'infiltration' bit (ride close, dismount and use Invisibility Sphere to creep past the sentries) is a bit hazy on the 'exfiltrate' part that apparently involves freeing the silver dragon, then running back to their horses and riding away. But we'll get to that.

Step 1 works flawlessly. The huge bonus to Stealth from being invisible works in their favor - apparently in Pathfinder, sound waves are visible, because Invisibility also makes you quiet. The Silver is chained and staked down about fifty yards off the horde's flank, guarded by 2 skullcrusher ogres, 4 hobgoblins, and two hobgoblin priests. Careful positioning and an opening Lightning Bolt makes that 2 ogres (1 wounded) and 2 Priests, and battle is joined. The Sorceress and Archer engage the unwounded ogre and priests, while the Barbarian goes to start smashing chains - the wounded ogre flees at top speed towards the camp, bellowing its head off and narrowly avoiding a salvo of arrows. Realizing they're on a clock, the party cranks up the short-term buffs, fending off a reinforcement pair of goblin worg-rider sentries before the silver is freed, the Oracle meanwhile pumping Cure spells into it; as the chains come off, they see the burn marks from where said chains were Heat Metal-ed as torture. Mr. Silver introduces himself, and promptly gets a 1-syllable nickname that the party will still manage to forget, instructing anyone who can to hold on tight - the horde is mobilizing in their direction, and Abiothrax has just taken to the air on the other flank. Luckily for the party, Large Quadrupeds have a ridiculous carrying capacity, and an impromptu harness system involving ropes and salvaged chain over the dragon's back allow him to airlift them free while remaining under a Light load. The Archer is talked out of being dropped off to 'solo the red dragon', and they manage to outrun both Abiothrax and the vulture riders, returning to Brindol on the morning of Day BoB-7.

Their plan is to rest up and return immediately, raiding Abiothrax this time. The lack of a convenient dragon to evac them this time hasn't hit them, I'll have to do something to avoid the party TPKing themselves due to lack of good planning. Immerstal, maybe, unwillingly sent to help them by Jaarmath. I've continued to play up the arrogant ivory-tower dandy persona, so it could be entertaining.

[jguy]

What prompted the inclusion of the Silver Dragon? I don't remember that being in the campaign, unless I missed it.

[The Glyphstone]

What prompted the inclusion of the Silver Dragon? I don't remember that being in the campaign, unless I missed it.

It's not, nor are the Hellknights (though they're subbing in for the dwarven mercenary company that is in the adventure). If you read back, the party managed to neatly derail the module and cut out Chapter 3 entirely by smashing the Ghostlord's phylactery. That left me with 3 weeks or so of in-game time I needed to fill with stuff other than 'sit around and wait'. The Silver dragon was one of the things I came up with, a split-decision to take out the Red and weaken the horde, or rescue the Silver and strengthen the defenses. They're still going to try to get the Red, but he'll be expecting them this time since they've struck once already.

[jguy]

Ah, well good idea. I wonder if the PC's would do what my players would do and turn the land around the city into one giant trap. Think vietnman style traps.

[Crasical]

Read a tiny bit of this, but didn't get too far into it, since we're diving into this game ourselves with a trio of level 7 PCs. Well, I say trio, but I got my first PC death against the Hydra, so it's down to two now until I bring in a replacement... Ah well. What little I read looks really interesting, though I can't really enjoy it because of spoilers. :T

[The Glyphstone]

Marathon update, because I forgot last week.

A Burning Grudge

There was still at least one dragon to deal with, and the party was determined to take him out. This time, they actually told the Council where they were going, and in the process secured Immerstal's grudging assistance, providing his own services and a scroll of Teleport to evacuate the group after their strike. The elven scouts reported that the red dragon had changed his behavior patterns, apparently spending all day sleeping on the now-empty silver dragon's transport platform, then sleeping more at night like before. Obviously, lazy dragon is lazy.

Tiri Kitor scouts deposited the group a suitably safe distance from the dragon's camp, and they crept inward. The density of aerial and ground patrols had increased, and they actually ran smack into one of the wolf-rider sentry teams - fortunately for them, they substantially beat the group on initiative, and a White Raven Tactics-assisted double full attack from the archer silently eliminated the scouts before an alarm was raised. The plan for dragonslaying was foolproof - they could see Abiothrax sleeping in the middle of his ring of bonfires, easy pickings. They'd buff with Resist Energy, Haste, and Air Walk, creep right up to the edge of his blindsense range, then charge and flatten him during the surprise round. The plan, unsurprisingly, fell apart when they reached the agreed meeting point, clustered up to buff...and Abiothrax stopped delaying his actions and rushed them, abandoning any pretense at being asleep.

Luckily for them, they had gotten Resist Energy off, saving the sorcerer and archer's lives and leaving the other three mostly unphased from his 'napalm breath' (Clinging Breath metabreath feat). He had, in fact, been waiting for them, buffed and ready. I was all set for a grand, difficult and exciting miniboss fight, until the archer+crusader pulled off their combo again and he scored 8 hits against AC29 with Deadly Aim active, wiping out 100+ HP in a single turn. Abiothrax promptly turned tail and fled into the safety of the main horde - the party, seeing a good chunk of the army mobilizing in their direction, snatched up his abandoned Bag of Holding and retreated to Immerstal and safe escape.

Sometime around here, the column of Hellknights arrived. Not much else to say.


The BeesWasps, Not The BeesWasps!

The bag was full of the previously studied and mentioned pyrestones, of which the sorceress got a few to augment her fire spells (4 free applications of the Burning Spell metamagic) while Immerstal took the rest for study. The very next day, at BoB-4, they happened to be on the streets when an alarmed runner came shouting about an attack in progress at the Temple of Pharasma. It turned out to be a pair of 'zombies' immune to positive energy, that upon being attacked, burst into hellwasp swarms. The sorceress was the only person capable of affecting them, and while the oracle was able to keep her conscious and healthy, one swarm effectively incapacitated her for the fight with a series of awful Fortitude saves. The other swarm methodically smashed the temple's (and thus the city's) entire supply of holy water, except for the bottles that the Barbarian thought to grab and rush outside to safety. The others had all gone in search of guards with torches, which Hellwasps were immune to, and the bugs fled after finishing their vandalism.

When all the dust was settled, three of the temple's four clerics were dead, leaving only one of the teenage acolytes. He was able to report that the person who had delivered the wagon containing the supposed scout's bodies for consecration was a red-haired woman, very beautiful and dressed in the armor of a Lion of Brindol, though he didn't recognize her. Reporting this to Lord Jaarmath found he had no red-haired Lions in his service, though investigation turned up a female Lion dead in an alley with her armor stolen.


Council of War:

With the Battle three days out, I decided to run the Meeting The Council RP event now, with the additions of the various allies' leaders. As-printed, Jaarmath wanted a field battle, while Ulverth wanted to use the fortifications, Lady Kaal was ambivalent and Trelora Goldenbrow wanted to abandon the town entirely. Additionally, the Mistress of Blades leading the Hellknights backed Jaarmath at first, disdained cowering behind walls, Strathylgnias didn't want to tangle with the horde head-on again unless he had to, Sellyria was favoring defense if the others voted for it, and Warklegnaw was just agreeing with whoever spoke last and loudest (he was looking through the outside window).
This got a good hour or so of roleplaying and discussing tactics through this whole scene, the party wisely choosing to back the ones favoring a defensive battleplan. They decided, on the other hand, that it would be a better option to have the clerics dispersed through the city to aid soldiers in the field, against Jaarmath's wishes again - though they instantly picked up on the fact that he wanted Tredora safe for personal reasons. Lastly, the discussion of the telepathic bond went up for debate, and ended remarkably quickly - one link went to the party's sorceress since she would be least likely to get into distracting close combat, and the other to Sellyria Starsinger - not only was she in direct command of the Tiri Kitor hunters, her airborne vantage point would give a commanding view of the battlefield and a position for excellent real-time intelligence.

There was nothing more to do but wait at this point, tension building as the horde finally marched into view. They literally shot the messenger who approached and informed them to abandon the city by nightfall or be slaughtered, earning a second 'messenger' of a zombie carrying a blood-red banner of 'we're not kidding this time, seriously'. Night fell, and the Battle of Brindol began.


Narrative break this time, to explain the next section. As written in the module, the party is expected to run a gauntlet of multiple encounters - venturing out to kill giants besieging the wall with rocks, then stopping Abiothrax's rampage over the town's flammable buildings, then the Streets of Blood gauntlet. But that's boring, so I modified it heavily to make this part pass a bit more quickly and also give the party a sense of accomplishment for their work over the game so far that was more tangible than Victory points.

There would be four 'crisis points', as designated in my notes, during the narration of the Horde's initial attack - key attempts to breach the city or cause havoc amongst the defenders. At each point, the party could assign one of the four groups of allies they'd collected to deal with the problem, if they didn't want to go by themselves. Every ally was effective against two of the problems, and ineffective against two - if they picked the wrong matchup, Streets of Blood would be a little bit harder.

The Hellknights would be effective against ground-based targets, and useless against airborne enemies.
The Giants would be best-used against big targets, since they had a limited supply of tree-trunk javelins.
The Elves would be most useful against large numbers of smaller enemies, coordination and formation making up for the smaller damage of their projectiles.
The Silver Dragon would be best-used where his airborne mobility would have the most effect.

Summarized:
{table=head] | Hellknights | Twisttusk Giants | Tiri Kitor Elves | Silver Dragon | Loss Results
Skeletons | Win | Loss | Win | Loss | Pre-Wave Cannon Fodder
Hill Giants | Win | Win | Loss | Loss | Random boulders falling on defenders
Vultures | Lose | Lose | Win | Win | Fewer friendly mooks
Abiothrax | Lose | Win | Lose | Win | No barricade
[/table]

The Battle of Brindol: Phase 1


As the horde closed on the city, the first wave was composed of several hundred mindless undead, mostly skeletons, intended to soak the defenders' fire and if possible, climb the walls to cause initial casualties at no cost. a Know: Religion check revealed skeletons are immune to cold, and resistant to piercing damage, so they ruled out the dragon and the elves as proper plays. That left the giants and knights, and the giants were known to have a limited supply of ammunition. Trampling hooves of fiendish war horses won out, and the Order of the God Claw rode out in force to decimate the skeletal advance guard.

A bit more fighting, and the second crisis point appeared - giants bombarding the southern wall, looking to breach it and open a second front. The dragon was ruled out immediately, since it would be an easy target for hurled boulders, and the elven air advantage was deemed to valuable to expend yet. So the Twisttusks gleefully rushed into battle, the youngest among them using their tree-trunk javelins to pole-vault over Brindol's walls in their enthusiasm. A mass giant-on-giant melee combat ensued, saving the wall from destruction.

With both of their softening-up plans foiled, the Red Hand then began its general advance, ogres pushing siege towers and battalions of hobgoblins carrying ladders under cover of tower shields. Meanwhile, the enemy air units began attacking in force, disrupting and distracting the wall defenders to give the siege troops protection. Here, the group reasoned that deploying their dragon would just get him swarmed and overwhelmed by the much more numerous enemy air units, despite his cone damage breath, so they sent in the elves for another mass aerial combat. The hunters were heavily outnumbered, but also well-practiced and much better at their jobs and more maneuverable than their opponents - they took heavy losses to clear the skies, but kept the enemy air off the wall.

The Red Hand still made it onto the walls, but against prepared and organized defenders instead of scattered and confused pockets, and the fighting became even fiercer. To sow confusion, Abiothrax finally made himself known, arcing around behind the main lines to set as much of the city on fire as he could. This caused the most debate so far, between dispatching the silver dragon to handle Abiothrax or going to fight him themselves. Strathyglynias had already lost one fight to the older and slightly larger red dragon, but on the flip side, he could fight the red in his own environment where the party would have difficulty forcing Abiothrax to battle. They finally decided to give him a Resist Fire spell and sent him off to fight; I described the fight as much like a WW2 bomber against a persistent fighter plane, Abiothrax had more firepower but couldn't maneuver effectively enough to bring it to bear against the more nimble enemy chasing him. By the time his pride would allow him to flee, it was too late, and someone's townhouse was flattened by a frozen dragon corpse.

For a short time, it seemed like the battle was going well, but then the Ghostlord's real troops came out of hiding. Ghost lions and dire lions appeared to savage the defenders of the main gate despite their having been reinforced against sabotage, opening a path for the Red Hand into the city. Forces redeployed to counter this, and Lord Jaarmath ordered the PCs to reinforce a militia squad on the Dawn Way in defense of the cathedral.

[Saintheart]

Glyph, once again I think you've come up with an elegant rework for one element of the campaign - that is, the whole "crisis point" concept as a way to streamline the Battle and get to the more meaty encounters such as holding the Dawn Way.

In one fell swoop, you've removed the sense that the party's the only competent force in the city, made the players think strategy and weigh up how they handle a set of encounters, made the "merc company" relevant in the battle beyond a handful of VP, removed the need to melee grind their way through a set of encounters, and actually brought home the relevance of some of their choices from earlier in the game. That's really, really nice. I've wound up in a different direction with my own campaign, so I won't be able to use it, but I can see how this would work and by the sound of it you got your party to enjoy the concept.

I notice you haven't mentioned the sniper attack yet, so it'll be interesting to see how you incorporate Skather into things.

Similar to before -- the 'crisis points' concept really deserves inclusion in the Handbook, would you mind if I stuck it in?

[The Glyphstone]

Cheerfully, and I'm glad you like it.


I'll be running the Sniper attack pretty much as-written, though I have upgraded Skather from a Ninja 6 to a Swordsage 6, and giving him Miha Serani as caster backup. Her contribution will be limited to snarky comments and self-defense unless he really gets his butt handed to him quickly, though.

[deuxhero]

snip


I can't tell from reading the first spoiler block, but did any of the character's "naturally" overcome the disease?

[The Glyphstone]

The fighter had passed his save the first time he was exposed. Unfortunately, he promptly re-infected himself at the next meal.

[The Glyphstone]

Blood In The Gutters
Wave 1: Here There Be Monsters

Planting themselves behind the makeshift barricade along the Dawn Way with ten militia and half a dozen Tiri Kitor archers, the party set to some hurried defensive planning. Most of the party was set behind the barricade and safety. The archers they had climb to the roofs of the nearby buildings, to have a commanding view of the street and safety from enemy melee attackers. Finally, the barbarian and three of the militia went out ahead of the barricade and secluded themselves into the alleyways between houses 30ft in front of the barricade for a planned pincer maneuver. This took about 15min to set up out-of-game, so the first wave rolled in on schedule.

Ten hobgoblins, two sergeants, and a pair of advanced manticores came at them out of the darkness first. The manticores immediately leapt to the rooftops and begin a projectile duel with the Tiri Kitor elves and the party's archer-fighter, while the hobgoblin regulars advanced behind a tower shield wall. This worked out pretty well right up until the wall passed the alleyways, then a raging barbarian and several militia mooks had some strong arguments to the contrary. The entire fight was basically split in two - on the ground, the barbarian and crusader were chewing through the hobgoblins, while above the manticores finished off the elves and traded spikes to the archer's arrows for a few rounds before dying. Overall, it was mostly a warmup that accomplished little except killing off the party's ranged support.


Wave 2: Bugbears Gone Wild

With four rounds of rest, the only person severely injured was the fighter at half health and a dozen or so manticore spines in his chest. Out came the Wand of Cure Light Wounds to bring him up almost to full before the healing was interrupted by the Blood Ghost Berzerker bugbears - numbers shrunk to 6, but upgraded to 4th-level Barbarians and given Diehard with their new feat. That was half a dozen enemies capable of soaking 109 damage each before they went down, and ended up being the hardest fight of the night. The crusader decided to go out to meet them instead of huddling behind the barricade this time, while the barbarian returned to the alleyway. As it turned out, this went rather poorly, since crazed bugbear barbarians are much tougher than hobgoblin mooks. The first hit in the fight was a critical greataxe strike that almost oneshot the crusader, and the barbarian didn't fare much better.

A grueling slog ensued, with hard-hitting axes taking one or both of the party's melee into dangerously low HP before a big burst of Channeled Energy from the oracle brought them back up to safety, while the fighter and sorceress blasted away from barricade safety. Two of the bugbears actually made it over the barricade, but the surviving mooks managed to do their duty one last time and soaked the initial attacks while the party shot them down. Diehard was a real boost here, being an effective 20Hp for 1 feat slot, though only one bugbear ever actually got the chance to use it actively - the party just took any conscious enemy as a threat and made sure they were dead before moving on.


Wave 3+4: I've Run Out of Dragon-Related Puns

Wave 3 would have been the Greenspawn Razorfiends, but they had all been killed at Rhest, so I just maxed out the party's recovery time. With their mooks decimated, the party decided to fort up behind the barricade, which turned out to be the first of several excellent tactical ploys. Stomping down into their face came six Bluespawn Stormlizards with goblin riders, ready to Mounted Combat like crazy. They had good planned tactics - advance to unload their lightning bolts, then charge anyone in front of the barricade or keep lightning bolting until someone was melee-able. All of this fell to pieces when the oracle remembered they had a Wand of Entangle, bought at the start of the game and never, ever used. So as soon as the stormlizards appeared - illuminated by a set of Light-enchanted stones the sorceress had created to deal with the shadowy darkness - they were stymied by 80ft of thrashing vines, and Stormlizards have awful Reflex saves.

They could have planted themselves and Lightning Bolt spammed, but the Oracle also had a Communal Resist Energy to spare, giving juicy Resist 20 vs. Electricity at the instruction of the sorceress and her Arcana check. Unable to attack effectively at range, the lizards and their riders had to slog forward at half speed, failing a good two-thirds of their Reflex saves vs. Entangle even at a paltry DC11. They always broke free, but were still unable to move fast or charge, and the fight was basically trivialized. The barbarian almost died again when the three lizards who survived advancing 90ft forward surrounded her, but barely scraped by. Remembering previous fights, the party was singling out the goblins first to eliminate Mounted Combat dodge attempts, which made the lizards even easier prey without their riders.


Wave 5: A Ghost Of A Chance

Their luck had to run out eventually, and unfortunately this was when it did. After two rounds of wand-healing, the party was struck by unearthly cold chills running down their spines. No enemies were in sight though, so they kept healing right up until the previously invisible Ghost Brute Lions quicken-materialized around them and proceeded to Bloodcurdling Howl. The Crusader and Barbarian failed the first Howl. The Fighter failed the second. The Sorceress failed the fourth, sending the entire party frightened and fleeing for between 2 and 6 rounds depending on the individual...except for the poor oracle, whose situation only got worse when the two Dire Lions manifested as well to blast her with gaze attacks and start stripping Charisma.

Alone and surrounded by undead, the oracle did what an oracle does and let loose a Channel, though rolled rather poorly and only did 15 damage even with their failed saves. She then tried to flee, but ate a hit from one Dire Lion for 4 Strength drain. On the ghosts' next turn, they finished draining her Strength to 0 and began their buffet. The Sorceress and Fighter made a cursory effort to shoot down the ghosts, but after one ineffectual round of long-range fire, decided to abandon the oracle to her fate and continue fleeing with the terrified melee. The only saving grace here was that Pathfinder changed how ability scores at 0 work, so at least the oracle wasn't paralyzed-yet-conscious as the brute ghosts devoured her 4d6 HP at a time.

The party heard Lord Jaarmath calling for a regroup around the cathedral, since the Dawn Way had fallen along with numerous other key points, and they heard his voice cut out with an unpleasant suddenness. Next stop, the cathedral, because why not...and maybe they'd pick up a healer along the way.

[WhiteShark]

Wave 5: A Ghost Of A Chance

Their luck had to run out eventually, and unfortunately this was when it did. After two rounds of wand-healing, the party was struck by unearthly cold chills running down their spines. No enemies were in sight though, so they kept healing right up until the previously invisible Ghost Brute Lions quicken-materialized around them and proceeded to Bloodcurdling Howl. The Crusader and Barbarian failed the first Howl. The Fighter failed the second. The Sorceress failed the fourth, sending the entire party frightened and fleeing for between 2 and 6 rounds depending on the individual...except for the poor oracle, whose situation only got worse when the two Dire Lions manifested as well to blast her with gaze attacks and start stripping Charisma.

Alone and surrounded by undead, the oracle did what an oracle does and let loose a Channel, though rolled rather poorly and only did 15 damage even with their failed saves. She then tried to flee, but ate a hit from one Dire Lion for 4 Strength drain. On the ghosts' next turn, they finished draining her Strength to 0 and began their buffet. The Sorceress and Fighter made a cursory effort to shoot down the ghosts, but after one ineffectual round of long-range fire, decided to abandon the oracle to her fate and continue fleeing with the terrified melee. The only saving grace here was that Pathfinder changed how ability scores at 0 work, so at least the oracle wasn't paralyzed-yet-conscious as the brute ghosts devoured her 4d6 HP at a time.

The party heard Lord Jaarmath calling for a regroup around the cathedral, since the Dawn Way had fallen along with numerous other key points, and they heard his voice cut out with an unpleasant suddenness. Next stop, the cathedral, because why not...and maybe they'd pick up a healer along the way.


Oh man, that's brutal. I've been watching Supernatural lately so it's not hard for me to imagine a group of ghosts tearing somebody apart. I've really enjoyed reading this, thanks for writing it.

[Eldariel]

And I'm caught up. I like what you've done with the place; much like the unique Eberron-style AslanCross did in a different direction. I wonder, are you going to be using the Tiamat Dragonspawns from MM4 to drive home the point about the gate and the connection, provided the party makes it that far?

Or are you going to keep it strictly a Goblin/Hobgoblin/Bugbear/Undead/Dragon/Associated Monsters-fest? Well, I guess Dragonspawns would count as associated monsters, but eh.

[The Glyphstone]

I've already used Bluespawn Stormlizards and Greenspawn Razorfiends, and Skather is staying as a Blackspawn Raider. The army and Azar Kul are worshipping Dahak instead of Tiamat here, so I can just shuffle some letters around and make them Dragonspawn of Dahak instead. It's not like the party cares where they come from.

[Eldariel]

I've already used Bluespawn Stormlizards and Greenspawn Razorfiends, and Skather is staying as a Blackspawn Raider. The army and Azar Kul are worshipping Dahak instead of Tiamat here, so I can just shuffle some letters around and make them Dragonspawn of Dahak instead. It's not like the party cares where they come from.

...true, I totally forgot Skath being a Blackspawn. Well, then that should be more than sufficient. I must say, you've done a great job from a narrative point of view though you've of course had silk gloves on at quite a few points (your party has done an amazing job trying to get themselves killed over and over). Still, if this is the first time 3.Xing for many of them I guess that's warranted.

I must say, I'll be following this with great interest, just to see if they manage to somehow survive this campaign in spite of the massive odds they have piled against themselves.

[Saintheart]

Now you've gone and left me on the edge of my seat, Glyph. I take it you'd recommend replacing the bonedrinkers with the ghost lions themselves, then? :smallsmile:

[The Glyphstone]

...true, I totally forgot Skath being a Blackspawn. Well, then that should be more than sufficient. I must say, you've done a great job from a narrative point of view though you've of course had silk gloves on at quite a few points (your party has done an amazing job trying to get themselves killed over and over). Still, if this is the first time 3.Xing for many of them I guess that's warranted.

I must say, I'll be following this with great interest, just to see if they manage to somehow survive this campaign in spite of the massive odds they have piled against themselves.

The Fighter (both of them) is a veteran, the ranger-turned-alchemist was a veteran, and the oracle (who's inheriting Tredora Goldenbrow) is a theorycraft veteran. The barbarian, crusader, and sorceress were all completely new to 3.x. Oddly, it's the Fighter who's both the most experienced and most suicidal - I think he just can't break the mindset developed from XCrawl.


Now you've gone and left me on the edge of my seat, Glyph. I take it you'd recommend replacing the bonedrinkers with the ghost lions themselves, then? :smallsmile:

To tell you the truth, I forgot to add the bonedrinkers to that encounter, only running the 4 Ghost Brutes and 2 Dire Ghost Lions the module says.:smallbiggrin: Though on reflection, it would only have added insult to injury.

[The Glyphstone]

Full Adamantine Jacket

With Lord Jaarmath indisposed and the horde closing in, the party decided they had nothing better to do than obey his orders and fall back to the Cathedral, maybe finding out what happened to him along the way. When they got there, they discovered Cathedral Square in a state of panic; individual clumps of soldiers huddling in alleys or making desperate dashes across the square, where dead bodies lay with arrows in their backs or faces. They even get to witness one unfortunate sergeant rally the troops and be promptly shot in the face from a building off to one side, though Perception is unfortunately inadequate to identify the shooter’s location. Finding Tredora Goldenbrow pinned down behind a barrel nearby, they add her to their retinue and begin planning how to foil the sniper. The fighter is all for bum-rushing the building, taking one round of fire to get into safety and go on the offensive. The cleric suggests using Summon Monster to call Eagles who would fly into the three possible windows, identify which one has a sniper, and fly back to report(?). The fighter also volunteers the barbarian, with her DR 4/-, to go stand in the middle of the square and soak arrow fire while the rest of the party tries to backtrack where the sniper is. She quickly un-volunteers herself, and they go with Plan 2, burning a Summon Monster III for eagles. The eagles fly in, and are promptly shot to death by Skather inside his storeroom perch. No eagles return, and they conclude that all three rooms have a hobgoblin archer inside. Plan 1 goes into effect, with a Haste spell to let everyone, including the heavy-armored folk, to clear the square in a double move. It works, though the Crusader is the unlucky soul to be hit by an arrow, and over the next 6 rounds of combat, ends up losing 7 points of Con from Deathblade Poison.


Watch Your Step

Clearing the first floor goes remarkably well. Rushing to keep their Hasted advantage, they open the office door, and receive a lightning bolt in the face that does no damage thanks to their previously cast Resist Energy. The War Adept there does not have time to recover from his surprise before an arrow flurry kills him. Finding out what’s behind Door Number 2 goes much the same way…the Crusader takes a whopping 1 point of damage after resistance, before she and the Barbarian double-team the adept and crush him mercilessly. That left only Door Number 3, which they sent the Barbarian up first. This was the stairway to the second floor, and Skather had of course trapped it. Caltrops, though, are boring as heck – instead, he had rigged a tripwire on the top step, hooked to a big bucket filled with cold grease. The Barbarian triggers this, though she passes the Acrobatics check to remain standing and escapes to the landing. The rest of the party, though, is not so fortunate. Several attempts at awful Acrobatics rolls see people tumbling hilariously down the stairs over and over, occasionally cannonballing into someone still at the bottom and knocking them down as well. Undaunted by this comedy of errors, the Barbarian investigates the storeroom to find it empty, followed by the Sorceress. Seeing a squishy target, Skather moves up and stabs her, dropping his invisibility and bracing to dodge a hit from the barbarian with his 32 AC. He’s not prepared for the critical hit that results, doing 60-odd damage in a single swing, popping his Dust of Disappearance and fleeing towards the back of the room to chug healing potions. Meanwhile, the Crusader has resorted to bodily picking up other members of the party and hurling them up the stairs, one of whom secures a rope to the table in the upper office so she can climb as well instead of balance on the slippery stairs.


This Is The Pits

Momentarily regrouped, now they need to fish out their hidden enemy before he drinks all their loot. The first try is a Sheet Lightning spell – it zaps the assassin, and an unseen woman in the room as well, but doesn’t give their positions away, because Invisibility also makes you quiet in PF. The pair starts taunting the party and insulting each other, while the Sorceress comes up with a fairly good plan – using Ball Lightning as enemy detectors, since they stop when occupying an enemy’s square. The flaw to this plan is that her spot in the initiative is directly before Skather, so every time she locates him, he 5-ft steps away and the party hammers the spot he isn’t anymore with full attacks. The Cleric decides to cast Create Water, dumping a gallon of water in 16 different squares to try and flush out the hidden enemies – this would have worked, but she didn’t pick any squares an enemy was actually standing in. Finally, the party realized their initiative-given problem and reshuffled the order, during which Miha decided to call up a Bearded Devil to occupy them. It prevailed mightily for a round, but then the cleric managed to Dispel it with a natural 20 to overpower Miha’s superior caster level. The upside to this was that the party had clumped up again, and Miha unleashed what turns out to be one of PF’s most devastating Reflex Save-or-Lose spells, the dreaded Acid Pit. Falling damage? Painful. Acid eating their items? Annoying. Stuck in a 60-ft. extradimensional pit without ranks in Climb? Big problem. It catches the Crusader and Barbarian, eliminating the party’s melee bruisers, right as Skather walks up and shanks the cleric with an invisible full attack after popping Searing Blade, hitting with all 5 Shadow Bladed Assassin Stance Searing Blade attacks and one-shotting her.


Module Ex Machina

Half the party is dead or effectively incapacitated at this point, and it looks like a TPK in progress. But Skather has lost his Invisibility in view of the archer and sorceress, who proceed to open up a can of whoopass. The can is spoiled, but together they barely succeed in pushing Skather below 30HP, hitting his prebuilt retreat condition (changing him from Ninja to Swordsage didn’t actually alter his HP total). He Disappears again, and Miha decides it’s also time to go, not being the sort to fight alone even if she could probably singlehandedly destroy the survivors right now. For a bit of levity, I decide she slips and falls going down the stairs – Skather sticks around just long enough to Comet Throw the archer into the acid pit as well, then flees. The party is in a bit of a pickle, guzzling Cure light Wounds potions to cancel the acid damage and losing the race, when someone remembers they still have a Golden Figurine of a Dire Lion in someone’s pack. It gets summoned, along with rope, and they rappel up the pit walls to safety and Mending spells. The Sniper has been defeated, at the cost of the city’s only Raise-Dead-capable caster, and the horde is closing in. They leave, ready to rally with the other defenders for a grand last stand.

DUN DUN DUN……

[rweird]

This has been a very enjoyable read for me. I have no idea how it will end, or even much about the RHoD in general, but I'm awaiting the conclusion to this adventure.

Are any of the original party members still alive?

[The Glyphstone]

The sorceress and crusader are still alive from the original party.

[rweird]

What do you think there chances are of surviving till the end?

[ksbsnowowl]

Great campaign journal. I'm running a heavily revamped version of RHoD at the moment (the only recognizable thing is the plot and encounter framework; every single monster is different; instead of hobgoblins it is a tanarukk and fiendish troll army with demon support; the army isn't attacking a city, but rather a location where a ritual MUST be performed, or more demons will flood the world) in a viking-themed gestalt game.

I really like your "crisis points" mechanic, but have a few questions about it. Do the PC's engage in any of these encounters? Or is their roll at that point just as "commanders" deploying troops?

I'm tempted to use the crisis points mechanic as a means of giving their choices meaning and impact in the whole of the battle, but still having the PC's engage one contingent of the skullcrusher ogre living siege weapons (of 5 four-ogre groups), and I most definitely want them to encounter the Nycaloth "demon" I used to replace the Red Dragon.

Second, your party did a good job of recruiting the crisis point allies. What would you suggest if they don't do such a good job of that? The lay-out of my campaign has been such that "random" encounters like the Mercenary Gold encounter could not feasibly come up. But the fact I have Hathran involved on the good-guy side throws a lot of the low-level conceits out the window. (The Hathran can be a help leading up to the battle, but during the battle all the high-level one's will be indisposed as part of the ritual the horde is trying to stop). I may just have the Hathran check on the mercenaries they hired via Sending, and then send the PC's to deal with the situation when they discover a problem.

Still, even with the mercenaries, there are only 3 groups of allies the PC's will have brought together (I have a land-bound group of skirmishers that serve the same purpose in the plot as the Tiri Kitor, and the mercenaries are going to be Barbarian//Druids of 5th-8th level [the PC's will be 11th]. They also got one good individual combatant - a Wild Hunter (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20070601a) with a small pack of Woodling Shadow Mastiffs).

They are working to bring Rashemi barbarians to the location, and I guess I could just count Runescarred Berserkers as the fourth group of allies. That, or a few 8th level Masters of the Yuirwood (who are more free to act now that they aren't busy keeping tabs on the Rotting Man [who I used in place of the Ghost Lord])...

[GreyMantle]

So did everyone die, did the game fall apart, or did you just not have time/inclination to write up the remaining session(s)?

[The Glyphstone]

Option 3. They went through the Final Battle, though they only won because the Ghostlord intervened at the last second and iced half the PCs and Kharn+Ulwai in a single Flamestrike. As much as it made sense in-story, I don't like resorting to DeMs. The archer and sorceress walked away from that alive, though the sorceress's player then went home for the summer.

Our only other session was after a 3-week break. They went to the Fane of Tiamat and TPKed horribly, and I'm not sure if we're going to continue - people say they want to, but keep having stuff come up.

[Demerious]

I'm new to the forum and I have great interest in running my own RHOD campaign. I started a group with friends but it ended up not going anywhere as most of the players moved or had a child. So my group dwindled away. I am looking to start again and need players in the Atlanta area... I am looking into gaming stores and bulletins in said stores to gather a group. I read your entire thread report on your groups progress through the RHOD adventure and found it helpful and entertaining. Your group sounds fun and seems to be overconfident, seeming as though they have nearly TPKed several time through out the adventure path. I have a home grown campaign setting but I use the PF rule set, just not the PF campaign setting. I have thrown in some Eberon elements as well.

My campaign actually starts at 1st level, ten years after the Red hand Horde had ravaged the Vale. It's a post apocalyptic setting, that brings all the members of the group together through an underground resistance and an ancient Rhestilorian prophecy. All the PC's start with the dragonmark tattoo feats from ebberon and are affiliated with the resistance one way or another. The prophecy eventually leads them to a portal that can bring the dragonmarked to the past and allow them to change the fate of the vale... they arrive just in time to get ambushed (Marauder Attack). :smallbiggrin:

I like Time travel in my campaigns and use it well. I usually require an extensive background for all players involved so that I can work it into my campaign. There is nothing like seeing one of your PC's vanish because he decided to change a part of his own past. :smalltongue: Time travel opens up a lot of discussion of what to do when the temporal flux situations are about to arise. :smallsmile:

I also was toying around with using the Miniatures handbook... or converting the army's to Warhammer rules in order to run the Battle of Brindol more like a Mass tactical battle game. I might need to break the battle into many smaller mass combats... but assigning and giving the PC's control of Brindols forces and having special character pieces on the field may be a kewl and exciting experience. Plus I use to play dnd minis and I have a huge collection of minis just lying around.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I've never read a RHoD journal where Miha ended up being important before. I'm very interested to see what you do with her.

Thread necro, but I was anticipating seeing what happened at this point too.

When I played through we were similarly suckered by Miha and my fighter ended up becoming quite attached to her. The party cleric and wizard figured out what was going on and called a party meeting one night (after she set us up for the marked for death encounter on the way to fight the Ghostlord) and decided she was a shapeshifting spy and we needed to kill her. Of course, they were under the impression she would revert to her natural form when killed, thus providing the evidence my fighter needed. Since 3.5 Arenaea didn't do that, my character never trusted clerics of Pelor again.

[Haruki-kun]

The Winged Mod: Thread Necromancy.